LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

University  of  California. 


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Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

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THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  NATION 


THE    CHILDREN    OF 
THE    NATION 

HOW    THEIR    HEALTH   AND   VIGOUR 

SHOULD    BE    PROMOTED 

BY   THE    STATE 


BY  THE  RIGHT  HON. 

SIR   JOHN    E.    GORST 


NEW  YORK 
E.    P.    DUTTON   AND   COMPANY 

31  West  Twenty-third  Street 
1907 


C- 


I   DEDICATE 

THIS   BOOK   TO    THE 

LABOUR   MEMBERS   OF  THE  HOUSE  OF  COMMONS, 

IN  TOKEN  OF  MY  BELIEF  THAT  THEY  ARE 

ANIMATED  BY  A  GENUINE  DESIRE  TO 

AMELIORATE  THE  CONDITION 

OF  THE  PEOPLE 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER   I 

PAGE 

Introductory  .......      i 

Reasons  for  interference  —  Public  safety  —  Public  economy — 
National  interest — Intervention  of  charity 


CHAPTER   II 

Infant  Mortality  .  .  .  .  .  .  .15 

Decrease  of  birth-rate— Condition  at  birth — Death-rate — Em- 
ployment of  mothers — Plans  for  reducing  the  death-rate — 
Artificial  feeding — How  people  should  be  taught — Survival  of 
the  fittest — Pure  milk — Municipal  supply 


CHAPTER  III 

Children  under  School-age      .  .  .  .  .33 

Parental  care — Fresh  air — Food — Medical  supervision — Origin 
of  infectious  disease — Double  government — Nurseries — Parental 
responsibility — Infant  insurance 


CHAPTER   IV 

Medical  Inspection  of  School-children        .  .  .50 

A  golden  opportunity  lost — Passing  the  doctor — Glimpses  of 
deterioration — Powers  of  the  Board  of  Education — Remedial 
measures — Official  visitors  of  school-children's  homes — Man- 
chester Ladies'  Health  Society — Visiting  Committees  of  the 
London  School  Board 

vii 


viii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  V 

PAGE 

Underfed  Children         .  .  .  .  .  .67 

Revelation  apprehended  from  medical  inspection — Number  of 
ill-nourished  children  —  Children's  rights  —  Parent  reforma- 
tion— Free  Feeding  —  Home  influence — Proper  diet — Delay 
dangerous — School  meals — The  official  circulars 


CHAPTER  VI 

Overworked  Children    .  .  .  .  .  .91 

Labour  out  of  school-hours — Mrs.  Hoare's  deputation — Educa- 
tion Department  return — Reception  of  the  return — Joint  Com- 
mittee— Theatrical  children — How  the  Act  is  administered — 
By-laws — Child  labour  in  Berlin — Incompetence 

CHAPTER  VII 

Children's  Ailments         .  .  .  .  .  .108 

Heredity — Diseased  glands — Adenoids — Tubercle — Heart  disease 
— Rickets— Eyes— Ears— Teeth— I  nf ectious  disease 

CHAPTER   VIII 

Medical  Aid  .  .  .  .  .  .  .125 

Existing  provision — Workhouse  infirmaries — Charitable  hospitals 
— Friendly  societies — Municipal  hospitals — Free  medical  aid — 
State  insurance  against  sickness — Testimony  of  Birmingham 
brass-workers 

CHAPTER    IX 

The  Forest  School  at  Charlottenburg        .  .  .153 

Origin  of  the  idea — Establishment  of  the  school — The  buildings 
— Lessons — School  life  of  the  children — The  teachers — Visitors 
to  the  school — Medical  treatment — Health  results — Education 
results — Cost 

CHAPTER  X 

Infant  Schools      .  .  .  .  .  .  .172 

Mothers  must  work — Premature  schooling  —  Practical  com- 
pulsion— Injury  to  mind  and  body  —  Corporal  punishment — 
Baby-rooms — School  offices — Infant  nurseries 


CONTENTS  ix 

CHAPTER  XI 

PACE 

School  Hygiene     .  .  .  .  .  .  .189 

Ventilation— Warming— Water— Lighting— Desks— Playgrounds 


CHAPTER  XII 

Physical  Training  ......  202 

Its  conditions  —  Military  drill  —  Swedish  drill  —  Jiu-jitsu — 
General  requirements — Neglect  of  physical  training— Evening 
classes — Hooligans 

CHAPTER  XIII 

Factories  and  Mines       .  .  .  .  .  .216 

Child  workers — Factory  legislation — The  Berlin  Conference — 
British  faith — Mines — Hours  of  labour  in  mines 


CHAPTER  XIV 

State  Children      .......  227 

Derelict  children — Evading  responsibility — Out-door  relief — 
State  children  in  workhouses — District  schools — Village  com- 
munities^— Scattered  homes — Boarding  out  —  Dr.  Barnardo's 
Homes 


CHAPTER  XV 

Hereditary  Disease         ......  247 

Causes  of   hereditary  disease — Alcoholism — Sjrphilis — Ravages 
amongst  children — Preventive  measures — Hospitals — Detention 


CHAPTER  XVI 

The  Home   ........  262 

Its  antiquity — Overcrowding— Municipal  activity — Apathy  of 
the  people — Stimulants  to  reform — New  slums — Rural  life  for 
workers — The  first  Garden  City — Garden  suburbs — Housing  in 
country  villages 


x  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  XVII 

PAGE 

Finance        ........  280 

Cost  of  reforms — Direct  and  indirect  taxation — Local  rates 
—  Popular  delusion  about  rates  —  Local  revenue  —  German 
system — Social  reform 


Index  .  .....  293 


THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  NATION 


CHAPTER   I 

INTRODUCTORY 

THE  object  of  this  book  is  to  bring  home  to 
the  people  of  Great  Britain  a  sense  of  the 
danger  of  neglecting  the  physical  condition  of  the 
nation's  children.  These  will  form  the  future  British 
people ;  and  upon  their  condition  and  capacity  will 
depend  not  only  the  happiness  of  our  own  country 
but  also  the  influence  of  our  Empire  in  the  world. 
No  proper  development  of  either  their  character  or 
intelligence  is  possible  unless  their  bodies  are  cared 
for  first ;  until  this  is  done  education,  religious, 
moral,  or  intellectual,  is  an  impossibility.  It  is  true, 
as  continually  asserted  by  those  who  desire  to 
renounce  public  responsibility,  that  the  duty  of 
bringing  up  children  rests  in  the  first  instance  with 
their  parents  ;  but  it  does  not  stop  there  ;  the  State 
has  duties  also  :  it  is  under  obligations,  first,  to 
see  that   the  rights    of   children    are   not   ignored 


2    THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  NATION 

or  violated  by  their  parents ;  secondly,  to  give  all 
possible  help,  by  advice  and  otherwise,  to  parents  in 
fulfilling  their  obligations ;  and,  thirdly,  to  perform 
the  parental  duties  itself  where,  from  death  or 
incapacity,  the  natural  parents  fail.  It  is  between 
birth  and  the  age  of  sixteen  or  seventeen  that  the 
physical  character  is  fixed  for  life,  and  it  is  mainly 
during  this  period  that  this  book  will  discuss  the 
condition  of  the  rising  generation  of  the  nation's 
children,  and  will  inquire  what  has  been,  what  can 
be,  and  what  ought  to  be  done,  to  promote  their 
growth  into  healthy  and  intelligent  men  and 
women. 

Reasons  for  Interference 

It  is  not  necessary  to  trouble  the  reader  with  a 
preliminary  discussion  of  the  philosophic  grounds 
which  justify,  and  limit,  interference  with  individual 
liberty.  The  right  of  the  community  to  regulate 
health  is  in  practice  conceded.  The  doctrine  of 
leaving  matters  to  take  their  course  is  still  occa- 
sionally invoked  in  opposition  to  some  distasteful 
proposal  of  a  particular  reform  ;  but  such  an  argu- 
ment has  nowadays  little  practical  weight.  Our 
laws  have  already  in  so  many  instances  prescribed 
the  conduct  to  be  pursued  by  men,  women,  and 
children  for  the  preservation  of  physical  health,  that 
any  reform  now  proposed  can  claim  consideration 
on  its  own  merits,  and  cannot  be  dismissed 
summarily  by  an  appeal  to  general  principles  of 
individual  liberty  and  independence.     It  will,  how- 


INTRODUCTORY  3 

ever,  be  useful  to  consider  shortly  in  this  preliminary 
chapter  some  of  the  principal  grounds  upon  which 
the  action  of  the  community  in  regard  to  public 
health  has  proceeded  in  actual  practice,  and  the 
motives  which  have  impelled  the  State  to  recognise 
rights  and  create  obligations  between  itself  and  in- 
dividual citizens. 

Public  Safety 

Public  safety  was  the  first  ground  on  which 
authority  intervened  to  protect  public  health. 
When  the  plague  and  the  small-pox  spared  neither 
noblemen  nor  kings,  when  the  jail-fever,  bred 
among  the  misery  of  the  prisoners,  took  the  lives 
of  judges  and  counsel,  it  was  time  for  the  adminis- 
trators of  government,  who  throughout  the  whole 
course  of  English  history  have  belonged  to  the 
well-to-do  classes,  to  bestir  themselves  and  grapple 
with  the  danger  at  its  source.  A  series  of  laws 
having  this  object  in  view  has  been  gradually 
adopted  ;  and  nobody  will  now  dispute  the  general 
proposition,  that  society  has  the  right  to  curtail  the 
liberty  of  the  individual  to  deal  with  his  own  body 
as  he  likes,  so  far  as  may  be  necessary  to  prevent 
him  becoming  a  source  of  disease  or  physical  danger 
to  the  community.  About  the  moral  expediency  of 
suppressing  a  disease,  or  the  efficacy  of  the  means 
prescribed  by  law  for  that  end,  controversy  may 
still  rage  in  certain  cases.  The  effort  made  by 
Government  some  forty  years  ago  to  mitigate  the 
widespread   mischief  caused  to  the   health   of  the 


4         THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

people  by  a  certain  class  of  contagious  diseases 
proved  entirely  abortive,  and  has  been  for  many 
years  discontinued.  But  the  opponents  of  the 
Contagious  Diseases  Acts  did  not  deny  the  general 
right  of  interference  by  public  authority;  their 
objection  was  based  on  two  grounds  :  first,  that  for 
moral  reasons  the  disease  ought  not  to  be  sup- 
pressed by  inspection  and  compulsory  hospital 
treatment ;  and,  secondly,  that  the  measures  adopted 
were  not  proved  to  be  efficacious.  In  quite  recent 
legislation  a  novel  principle  of  a  somewhat  similar 
kind  has  been  introduced  ;  the  individual  himself  is 
to  be  the  judge  of  the  expediency  of  remedies 
prescribed  by  law,  and  can  exempt,  not  himself, 
but  his  child,  from  their  operation,  by  declaring 
that  he  "  conscientiously "  objects  to  them.  This 
principle  has  so  far  been  confined  to  vaccination 
and  small-pox.  Indeed,  it  is  only  in  regard  to 
that  particular  disease  and  that  particular  remedy 
that  consciences  seem  liable  to  be  perturbed.  The 
most  ardent  anti-vaccinator  does  not  object  to  an 
injection  of  antitoxin  if  his  child  is  suffering  from 
diphtheria.  But  if  the  principle  that  conscience  is 
to  sit  in  judgment  on  the  remedies  of  the  physician 
were  logically  extended,  it  would  render  all  attempts 
on  the  part  of  public  authority  to  suppress  disease 
abortive. 

Public  Economy 

The  second  reason  for  the  care  of  public  health 
to  which  I  shall  refer  is  economy — economy,  not  for 


INTRODUCTORY  5 

the  individual,  but  for  the  State  itself.  Epidemics 
in  particular  are  not  only  dangerous,  they  are  also 
very  expensive,  and  inflict  a  serious  pecuniary  loss 
on  the  whole  people.  But  although  the  economy 
of  suppressing  infectious  disease  is  not  controverted, 
there  is  much  difference  as  to  the  details  of  ad- 
ministration and  the  regulations  under  which  public 
expenditure  should  be  incurred  for  that  purpose. 
The  duty  of  caring  for  the  public  health  is  divided 
among  many  departments  of  the  Central  Govern- 
ment ;  and  the  local  administration  is  confided  to 
two  separate  bodies,  the  Board  of  Guardians  and 
the  Sanitary  Authority,  which  in  towns  is  the 
Municipal  Council.  It  is  not  surprising  that  the 
views  of  these  two  local  bodies  upon  what  is 
economy  are  sometimes  in  conflict.  The  Sanitary 
Authority,  which  has  to  provide  out  of  the  rates  the 
cost  of  stamping  out  epidemics,  is  keenly  alive  to 
the  economic  advantage  of  dealing  promptly  with 
their  first  beginning.  Their  officers  urge  the  poorer 
classes,  amongst  whom  infectious  disease  is  generally 
in  the  first  instance  propagated,  to  send  for  the 
doctor  on  the  first  appearance  of  symptoms  which 
lead  them  to  suspect  infectious  disease  in  their 
children.  But  the  relieving  officers,  upon  whom 
it  is  impressed  by  most  Boards  of  Guardians  that 
application  for  medical  aid  is  an  ugly  symptom  of 
pauperism  to  be  at  once  sternly  repressed,  invoke 
all  the  deterrents  at  their  command,  to  frighten  the 
parents  from  following  the  advice  of  the  sanitary 
officers.      Medical  relief  is  given  on  loan  ;  the  debt 


6    THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  NATION 

so  incurred  hangs  as  a  load  on  the  struggling  family  ; 
the  debtor  is  harassed  by  applications  to  pay  instal- 
ments. If  this  involved  a  mere  curtailment  of  beer 
and  tobacco,  it  might  not  be  so  objectionable,  but 
the  money  is  often  of  necessity  wrung  from  the 
scanty  nourishment  of  a  half-starved  wife  and 
children.  The  exigence  of  the  relieving  officer  is 
by  many  Boards  of  Guardians  stimulated  by  an 
allowance  of  20  per  cent,  or  so  out  of  the  sums  he 
recovers.  In  other  cases  the  parent  who  asks  for 
medical  aid  for  his  child  is  required  to  appear  before 
the  Board  of  Guardians,  missing  thereby  a  portion 
of  his  day's  work,  and  risking  the  loss  of  his  "job  " ; 
he  incurs  besides  that  social  ignominy  which 
attaches  to  parents  who  demand  for  their  children 
that  medical  relief  to  which  the  latter  are  legally 
entitled.  It  is  a  mistaken  sentiment,  which  many 
of  the  richer  classes,  to  the  detriment  of  their  own 
true  economic  interest,  sedulously  foster.  By  means 
of  this  kind,  a  Board  of  Guardians  in  a  rich  part  of 
London  reduced  the  applications  for  medical  relief 
from  4,246  in  1899  to  2,280  in  1901,  and  took  great 
credit  for  the  performance. 

National  Interest 

There  is  a  third  and  much  broader  ground  than 
mere  local  economy  that  warrants  public  concern 
about  public  health  ;  it  is  the  interest  of  the  nation 
at  large.  This,  however,  cannot  be  invoked  as  an 
argument  for  attention  to  national  health,  without 


INTRODUCTORY  7 

bringing  upon  its  author  the  vague  accusation  of 
"  Socialism,"  which  to  a  public  man  is  a  calumny  as 
terrible  as  it  is  unanswerable.  It  is  without  any 
doubt  the  interest  of  the  community  as  a  whole 
that  every  man  and  woman  who  contributes  to  the 
production  of  wealth  should,  when  sick,  be  made 
whole  and  efficient  as  quickly  as  possible,  and  that 
every  child  should  be  so  brought  up  as  to  grow  into 
a  healthy  man  or  woman  fit  to  be  a  strength,  and  not 
a  burden,  to  the  nation.  The  sick  are  of  necessity 
during  their  sickness  a  pecuniary  loss  to  society. 
They  have  to  be  fed,  clothed,  lodged,  and  cared  for 
by  the  labour  of  others,  to  which,  during  the  duration 
of  sickness,  they  themselves  can  contribute  little  or 
nothing.  It  is  therefore  the  common  interest  that  this 
period  of  dependence  should  be  shortened  as  much  as 
possible.  But  a  proposal  for  free  medical  aid  in  sick- 
ness, however  consistent  with  true  economy,  would 
be  dismissed  by  most  people  as  flat  "  Socialism,"  and 
as  likely,  moreover,  to  injure  the  vested  interests 
of  the  secretaries  and  officials  of  existing  Benefit 
Societies.  These  objections  are  in  many  cases  insin- 
cere, the  real  motive  being  to  get  rid  without  further 
examination  of  an  obnoxious  idea  involving  un- 
known trouble  and  expense.  Otherwise  the  objector 
would  be  more  ready  to  consider  how  thrift  with  a 
view  to  the  exigencies  of  sickness  could  be  pro- 
moted or  even  imposed  by  law  as  an  obligation  on 
all,  and  how  the  existing  Benefit  Societies  could  be 
made  to  fit  into  a  universal  scheme  of  insurance. 
This  has  been  actually  effected  for  many  years  in 


8    THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  NATION 

Germany,  where  upwards  of  ten  million  workers 
are  insured,  and  have  a  right  in  consideration  of 
their  insurance  payments  to  medical  aid  in  sickness 
for  themselves  and  their  families,  including  hospital 
treatment,  where  required,  surgical  appliances,  and 
any  medicines  or  special  diet  ordered  by  the  doctor. 
Amongst  the  children  of  parents  who  are  too  poor 
to  perform  their  parental  duty,  or  who  wickedly 
neglect  it,  the  cruel  havoc  which  is  wrought  by 
starvation,  by  unsuitable  food,  by  the  conditions  in 
which  they  live,  not  only  in  their  homes,  but  in 
many  of  the  public  elementary  schools,  by  accident, 
and  by  preventible  disease,  is  now  thoroughly  well 
known.  Many  are  killed  ;  this  in  the  eyes  of  those 
who  believe  Great  Britain  to  be  overpopulated  may 
be  no  economic  loss.  But  many  more  survive  and 
grow  up  into  damaged  men  and  women,  who  fill 
our  hospitals,  our  prisons,  our  workhouses  and  in- 
firmaries, who  remain  a  lifelong  burden  on  society, 
and  whose  cost  in  care  and  maintenance  to  the 
community  in  mature  age  vastly  exceeds  the  sum 
which,  judiciously  expended  on  them  in  their  youth, 
would  have  turned  them  into  useful  members  of 
society.  "There  are  some  folks,"  said  a  working 
man  at  a  discussion  of  this  subject,  %i  whom  society 
has  got  to  pay  for  either  at  the  beginning  or  end  of 
their  lives ;  and  it  is  much  cheaper  to  pay  at  the 
beginning."  But  the  moment  any  proposal  is  made 
to  deal  with  this  diseased  and  neglected  portion  of 
our  growing  population,  the  cry  of  "  Socialism  "  is 
raised   by   a   class  of  philosophical   philanthropists 


INTRODUCTORY  9 

among  the  rich,  and  any  attempt  to  treat  this  festering 
sore  is  denounced  as  "  undermining  parental  respon- 
sibility. "  That  the  objection  is  in  many  cases  only 
an  excuse  for  doing  nothing  and  leaving  the  children 
to  perish  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  few  of  those  who 
are  loudest  in  raising  this  objection  make  any  effort 
to  enforce  in  the  children's  interest  that  parental 
responsibility  the  sense  of  which  they  regard  as 
more  important  than  bread  to  the  hungry.  It  is 
now  established  beyond  controversy  that  under  our 
laws  children  have  a  legal  right  to  be  maintained  by 
others  till  they  are  of  age  to  maintain  themselves. 
Maintenance  includes  food,  clothes,  lodging,  and 
care  in  sickness.  The  obligation  to  fulfil  this  right 
rests  in  the  first  instance  upon  the  parents  ;  but  it 
does  not  stop  with  them  ;  it  is  one  of  the  elementary 
duties  of  civilised  society  to  protect  the  rights  of 
every  citizen,  big  and  little,  and  to  secure  the  per- 
formance of  the  corresponding  duty.  But  in  case 
of  default  by  the  parents,  whether  from  poverty  or 
neglect,  the  child  has  a  further  right  of  recourse  to 
the  State,  and  a  legal  claim  to  be  maintained  at  the 
public  expense.  This  is  not  "  Socialism  "  :  it  is  a 
description  of  the  law  of  the  land.  The  fact  that 
notwithstanding  this  law  children  go  about  hungry 
and  destitute  under  the  eyes  of  public  officials  in 
the  public  schools  was  attributed  by  the  late  Presi- 
dent of  the  Local  Government  Board  to  "  defective 
administration."  Some  clumsy  attempts  have  been 
made  since  this  dictum  was  pronounced  to  improve 
this  defective  administration  and  to  amend  a  state 


10       THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

of  things  not  only  cruel  to  the  children  and  dis- 
creditable to  our  system  of  government,  but  also 
injurious  to  national  interest.  The  method  by 
which  parental  responsibility  should  be  enforced 
will  be  discussed  hereafter ;  but  it  may  be 
observed  here  that  their  duty  to  their  children  is 
already  well  performed  by  some  of  the  poorest 
workers  of  this  country,  by  the  Jews  settled  in 
our  great  cities,  whose  poverty  has  caused  them 
to  be  regarded  by  many  as  "undesirable  aliens," 
and  to  a  great  extent  by  the  poor  Irish.  Of  the 
British  parents  who  fail  in  their  duty,  a  great  number 
fail  from  mere  ignorance,  and  if  instructed  and 
helped  by  public  authority,  by  the  visits  of  properly 
authorised  visitors,  would  maintain  their  children  in 
a  satisfactory  condition.  Others  are  incapable  of 
taking  proper  care  of  their  children  from  destitution, 
and  are  entitled  to  public  relief  for  themselves  and 
their  children.  The  residue,  who  are  vicious, 
drunken,  cruel,  or  negligent,  are,  as  far  as  our 
imperfect  information  goes,  only  a  small  minority, 
not  too  numerous  to  be  effectively  dealt  with. 

Intervention  of  Charity 

These,  then,  are  the  principal  grounds  on  one  or 
other  of  which  collective  interference  with  the  duties 
and  responsibilities  of  individuals  in  the  interest  of 
public  health  has  been,  or  can  be,  justified — public 
safety,  public  economy,  and  national  interest  in 
having  a  strong  and  healthy  people.     But  besides 


INTRODUCTORY  11 

governments,  central  and  local,  there  are  other 
powerful  agencies,  coming  under  the  general  name 
of  "Charity,"  which  busy  themselves  in  matters 
which  concern  the  health  of  the  people — Voluntary 
Societies,  which  care  for  women  in  child-birth, 
maintain  and  bring  up  infants,  provide  medical  aid 
for  the  sick  in  hospitals  and  dispensaries,  feed  and 
clothe  hungry  and  naked  school  children,  and  pro- 
vide better  dwellings  and  healthier  surroundings  for 
all.  As  the  operations  of  "  Charity  "  and  of  Public 
Authority  meet,  conflict  with,  and  overlap  each 
other  at  every  point  of  the  field  which  is  covered 
by  the  care  of  public  health,  some  observations  on 
the  relation  between  the  two  are  necessary  in  an 
introductory  chapter. 

The  motives  which  induce  private  persons  to 
organise  themselves,  and  contribute  the  necessary 
funds  for  the  performance  of  work  beneficial  to  the 
community  at  large,  are  deserving  of  the  highest 
praise,  and  redeem  the  well-to-do  classes  from  the 
charge  of  social  selfishness.  They  feel  constrained 
to  do  something  to  relieve  their  own  consciences 
and  to  benefit  their  less  fortunate  brethren,  and  they 
respond  to  appeals  for  money  with  a  benevolence 
which  newspapers  and  public  orators  cannot  too 
highly  extol.  Voluntary  labour  and  voluntary  sub- 
scriptions given  to  public  purposes,  our  lifeboats, 
our  voluntary  schools,  and  our  hospitals,  constitute 
one  of  the  best  traits  of  our  national  character 
Miserable  as  is  the  condition  of  the  poor  in  our 
prosperous  and  wealthy  country,  it  would,  in  the 


12       THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

absence  of  more  energetic  Government  action,  be 
more  miserable  still  but  for  these  philanthropic 
efforts.  The  Salvation  Army  and  the  Church 
Army  have  redeemed  thousands  of  derelict  lives  ; 
Dr.  Barnardo  and  the  "Waifs  and  Strays"  have 
rescued  thousands  of  destitute  children.  But 
" Charity"  is  subject  to  serious  drawbacks.  Its 
efficiency  is  continually  hampered  for  lack  of 
means.  A  great  part  of  the  energy  of  chari- 
table people  has  to  be  expended  in  the  collec- 
tion of  funds.  Bazaars,  theatricals,  concerts,  and 
drawing-room  meetings  use  up  much  of  the  time 
and  money  intended  for  the  service  of  the  poor. 
1 'Charity"  can  seldom  cover  the  whole  ground; 
there  are  regions — and  those  the  very  places  in 
which  need  and  misery  is  greatest — where  there 
are  no  rich  and  charitable  residents,  and  where, 
therefore,  "Charity"  does  not  operate  at  all,  or 
operates  under  great  disadvantage.  "Charity  "  has 
a  tendency  to  sap  self-dependence  and  to  under- 
mine parental  responsibility,  which  may  in  the  long 
run  produce  bad  effects  on  the  character  of  the 
people.  If  a  starving  child  be  fed  by  public 
authority,  the  negligent  parent  can  be  made  liable  ; 
he  cannot  if  the  child  be  fed  by  a  charitable  society. 
Finally,  when  the  time  arrives  at  which  the  collec- 
tive nation  awakens  to  its  responsibilities  and  begins 
to  fulfil  those  duties  it  has  previously  abandoned 
to  private  enterprise  the  existence  of  voluntary 
agencies,  which  can  neither  be  ignored  nor  abolished, 
and   the  vested   interests  of  their   secretaries  and 


INTRODUCTORY  13 

officials,  constitute  an  obstacle  to  reform  and  an 
excuse  for  doing  nothing,  which  it  is  not  always 
easy  for  the  social  reformer  to  overcome.  Generous 
recognition  by  the  Government  of  past  services  and 
an  arrangement  by  which  the  zeal  and  experience 
of  those  who  have  previously  been  volunteers  is 
still  made  use  of  in  the  public  system  is  the  proper 
course,  but  it  is  not  always  adopted.  First  jealousy, 
and  then  suppression  of  the  voluntary  system,  is  the 
common  proceeding.  Of  this  the  recent  history  of 
education  in  England  is  an  instructive  example. 
Up  to  the  year  1870  voluntary  agencies  managed 
the  whole  education  of  the  people,  first  entirely  at 
their  own  cost  and  afterwards  with  grants  in  aid 
from  the  Exchequer.  In  1870  the  nation  awoke  to 
its  duty,  and  established  School  Boards  to  occupy 
the  ground  which  voluntary  agency  failed  to  cover. 
Jealousy  and  rivalry  between  the  two  systems  went 
on  for  thirty  years.  In  1902  an  unskilful  attempt, 
likely  from  the  first  to  prove  abortive,  was  made  to 
fit  voluntary  schools  into  a  national  system  and 
thus  utilise  the  zeal  which  so  long  carried  on 
national  education  by  itself.  Now  it  is  proposed 
that  the  nation  shall  assume  the  sole  responsibility 
for  national  education  and  the  entire  management 
of  the  public  schools  so  long  entrusted  to  others, 
and  that  voluntary  agency  shall  altogether  disappear. 
The  same  thing  will  probably  happen  to  the 
voluntary  agencies  for  promoting  public  health. 
So  soon  as  the  nation  realises  its  duties  in  regard 
to    this    matter,    charitable    contributions   will    be 


14       THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

gradually  replaced  by  rates  and  taxes,  the  voluntary 
management  by  a  committee  of  the  local  authority  ; 
and  if  the  zeal  of  private  persons  is  still,  as  it  ought 
to  be,  made  use  of,  it  will  be  as  visitors  to  see  that 
medical  orders  are  carried  out  and  as  apostles  of 
hygiene  in  the  homes  of  the  people,  acting  under 
public  sanction.  To  such  a  consummation  a  large 
proportion  of  the  richer  classes  would  be  sure  to 
offer  a  determined  resistance.  It  is  one  thing  to 
dispense  charity  of  your  own  accord  to  needy 
people  who  make  no  claim  of  right  and  who  put 
forward  no  title  but  poverty  and  misery ;  it  is 
another  thing  to  have  your  money  compulsorily 
taken  from  you  in  the  shape  of  rates  or  taxes  to 
make  good  a  claim  of  right  which  the  poor  allege 
to  have  been  too  long  ignored  and  the  justice  of 
which  is  for  the  first  time  recognised  by  the  collec- 
tive nation.  A  large  number  of  the  most  vehement 
opponents  of  the  right  of  starving  school  children 
to  be  fed  at  the  public  expense  are  themselves  the 
most  benevolent  and  praiseworthy  supporters  of 
free-dinner  societies.  They  would  think  it  better 
to  let  a  child  starve  than  undermine  parental 
responsibility  by  giving  it  a  penny  dinner  at  the 
cost  of  the  rates,  but  they  lavishly  support  with 
perfect  equanimity  the  complete  destruction  of  the 
parental  responsibility  by  charity. 


CHAPTER   II 


INFANT    MORTALITY 


Decrease  of  Birth-rate 

THE  birth-rate  in  Great  Britain,  as  in  most 
civilised  countries,  is  on  the  decline.  The 
last  rate  published  by  the  Registrar-General  was 
the  lowest  on  record ;  and  the  birth-rate  is  much 
lower  in  country  districts,  where  the  death-rate  of 
infants  is  lowest,  than  in  the  great  towns,  where  it 
is  highest.  In  this  country  no  public  inquiry  has 
been  made  into  the  causes  of  this  diminishing  birth- 
rate, but  in  New  South  Wales,  where,  as  in  all  the 
other  Australasian  colonies,  a  similar  phenomenon 
has  occurred,  the  matter  was  regarded  as  so  serious 
that  a  Royal  Commission  was  appointed,  which 
extended  its  research  into  all  the  other  Australian 
colonies  and  asked  for  and  obtained  a  report  from 
the  Registrar  of  the  Colony  of  New  Zealand.  From 
the  evidence  taken  and  the  report  made  by  this 
Commission  it  is  apparent  that  this  diminishing 
birth-rate  is  at  the  Antipodes  due  to  a  growing 
reluctance  on  the  part  of  those  classes  of  society 


15 


16       THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

which  live  in  ease  and  comfort  to  incur  the  pains 
and  troubles  of  parenthood.  In  the  absence  of  any 
direct  inquiry  at  home,  it  may  not  unreasonably  be 
assumed  that  similar  causes  are  in  operation  here. 
If  that  be  so,  it  is  in  the  richer,  and  not  in  the 
poorer,  classes  of  society  that  the  great  diminution 
of  births  is  taking  place ;  it  is  the  former,  not  the 
latter,  who  are  failing  in  the  primitive  duty  of  keep- 
ing up  the  British  race.  If  those  by  whom  our 
future  citizens  are  now  being  bred  are  not  the 
unfittest  part  of  our  people,  they  are  at  least  those 
whose  poverty  makes  them  the  least  competent  to 
provide  the  food,  the  home,  and  the  other  conditions 
of  life  which  are  necessary  for  children  if  they  are 
to  grow  into  strong  and  healthy  men  and  women. 
This  furnishes  one  of  the  strongest  arguments  of 
those  who  claim  that  the  State  should  relieve  the 
poor  of  part  of  the  cost  of  feeding  their  children, 
just  as  it  has  relieved  them  of  the  cost  of  educa- 
tion. The  poor,  they  say,  bear  in  the  interest  of 
the  nation  more  than  their  fair  share  of  the  burden 
of  motherhood ;  it  is  only  right  that  the  rich,  who 
will  not  bring  children  of  their  own  into  the  world, 
should  contribute  something  towards  the  nourish- 
ment of  the  future  citizens. 

Condition  at  Birth 

As  the  birth-rate  dwindles  it  becomes  more  desir- 
able that  the  community  should  make  the  most  of 
such  children  as  are  brought  into  the  world.  If  it 
is  true,  as  stated  by  public  orators,  that  children  are 


INFANT    MORTALITY  17 

a  valuable  national  asset,  it  is  one  that  we  waste 
with  the  most  reckless  prodigality.  Medical  testi- 
mony assures  us  that  90  per  cent,  of  the  children  born 
are  at  their  birth  fairly  healthy  and  well  nourished. 
When  they  come  into  the  world  the  children  of  the 
rich  are  in  their  bodies  little  better  than  those  of 
the  poor.  Hereditary  disease,  chiefly  syphilis  and 
alcoholism,  are  equally  spread  over  all  classes. 
Poverty  and  privation  during  gestation  seems  to 
affect  the  mother  more  than  the  child.  By  a  curious 
law  of  physiology  if  nutrition  is  insufficient  for  both 
mother  and  child  it  is  the  former  that  is  starved  ; 
the  latter  gets  the  lion's  share  :  the  child  thrives 
at  its  mothers  expense.  But  from  the  moment  of 
birth  deterioration  sets  in ;  and  it  is  only  in  recent 
times  that  the  public  has  begun  to  care  about 
this  or  to  do  much  to  prevent  it.  How  many 
infants  perish  by  accident  or  lack  of  skilled  assist- 
ance at  the  moment  of  birth  we  have  no  statistics 
to  show.  Commissions  and  committees  have  re- 
commended the  registration  of  still  births,  but  no 
Government  has  ever  had  leisure  to  attend  to  so 
trivial  a  matter.  Besides  the  children  that  perish 
in  child-birth,  many  are  maimed  for  want  of  skilled 
help ;  they  come  into  the  world  alive,  indeed,  but 
so  damaged  as  to  be  incapable  of  growing  into 
healthy  men  and  women,  and  remain  a  burden  on 
society  for  the  whole  of  their  lives.  The  visit  of  a 
parish  doctor  or  midwife,  at  the  cost  of  a  few 
shillings,  might  save  the  "valuable  national  asset," 
but  it  is  not  considered  worth  it.    In  Ireland  women 


18       THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

have  a  legal  right  to  aid  in  child-birth,  and  obtain 
their  right.  In  England  they  have  the  same  right, 
but  are  deterred  by  the  Boards  of  Guardians  from 
availing  themselves  of  it. 

Death-rate 

But  besides  the  unknown  losses  by  still  births, 
amongst  those  children  who  do  come  alive  into 
the  world  the  mortality  during  the  first  year  of  life 
is  appalling.  In  spite  of  the  great  reduction  in 
the  general  death-rate,  which  in  recent  years  has 
been  brought  about  by  greater  attention  to  public 
health,  the  infant  death-rate  has  not  shared  in 
this  reduction,  but  has,  on  the  contrary,  shown  a 
tendency  to  increase.  Great  Britain  is  in  respect 
of  infant  mortality  by  no  means  the  worst  of  the 
civilised  nations.  Percentages  give  a  very  in- 
adequate conception  of  this  frightful  mortality ; 
but  as  compared  with  the  average  annual  mortality 
in  Great  Britain  of  16  in  the  thousand,  the  death- 
rate  per  thousand  of  infants  under  a  year  old  is 
given  by  Dr.  George  Newman,  in  his  book  on 
Infant  Mortality,  as  follows  :  In  Russia,  272  ;  in 
Austria,  227;  in  Germany,  195;  in  France,  158. 
In  Scandinavia  the  rate  is  much  lower;  the  average 
for  the  years  1 893-1 902  was  for  Sweden  99  and  for 
Norway  94.  In  New  Zealand,  during  the  same 
period,  it  was  82.  In  England  and  Wales  it  was 
for  the  same  period  152  ;  in  Scotland,  127  ;  and 
in    Ireland   only    104.     In   different   parts   of    the 


INFANT    MORTALITY  19 

United  Kingdom  the  rate  varies  greatly :  for  the 
five  years  190 1-5  it  was  91  in  Wiltshire  and  163 
in  Lancashire.  It  is  exceptionally  high  in  all  manu- 
facturing towns,  especially  those  where  textile 
industries  flourish.  In  Burnley  in  1904  it  was 
233,  and  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for 
Birmingham  reported  in  1905  that  in  the  parish 
of  St.  Mary's,  in  the  centre  of  that  city,  it  was  331. 
These  are  average  figures  which  include  the  whole 
infant  population,  rich  and  poor.  But  I  am  assured 
by  doctors  who  are  in  actual  practice  in  our  cities 
that  such  figures  give  no  idea  of  the  infant  mortality 
amongst  the  poor,  and  that  they  know  of  streets 
in  which  more  than  half  the  children  born  alive 
perish  under  a  year  old.  Royal  Commissions  and 
Parliamentary  Committees  to  inquire  into  the 
causes  of  this  frightful  infant  mortality  have  been 
talked  of,  but  in  our  country  at  least  there  is  no 
mystery  to  explore. 

Employment  of  Mothers 
The  main  cause,  before  which  all  others  sink 
into  insignificance,  is  that  the  arrangements  of 
modern  society  require  mothers  to  labour  for  the 
sustenance  of  their  families  in  factories,  work- 
shops, and  other  places  away  from  their  children 
and  homes,  and  thus  neglect  their  duties  to 
their  new-born  babes  and  rob  them  of  their 
proper  food.  It  is  not  their  fault.  The  wages 
they  earn  are  necessary  to  the  support  of  their 
families,   and  if  they  were  to  cease  work,   forego 


20       THE    CHILDREN    OF   THE    NATION 

their  wages,  stay  at  home,  and  suckle  their  children, 
their  families  would  sink  into  poverty  and  destitution. 
But  the  new-born  infant  has  to  begin  life  by  being 
sacrificed  to  the  rest  of  the  family.  It  is  robbed 
of  its  mother's  milk,  it  is  deprived  of  its  natural 
protector,  and  it  has  to  be  handed  over  to  the  care 
of  others  who  are  often  ignorant  and  indifferent. 
Any  one,  however  unfit,  may  in  this  country  under- 
take the  daily  charge  of  little  children  ;  abroad,  they 
must  generally  be  licensed.  We  hear  nothing  of 
undermining  parental  responsibility  when  the 
renunciation  of  maternal  duty  is  useful  to  the 
industries  of  the  country,  and  serves  the  interest 
of  employers.  So  long  as  the  workers  themselves 
permit  such  a  state  of  things  to  continue,  whereby 
a  working  woman  has  to  attempt  the  impossible 
task  of  combining  the  function  of  nursing-mother 
and  bread-winner,  so  long  will  excessive  infant 
mortality  prevail  in  all  the  great  centres  of  industry 
throughout  the  world.  Many  attempts  have  been 
made  to  deal  with  this  evil  by  legislation,  chiefly  in 
the  interest  of  mothers,  but  to  some  small  extent  in 
vindication  of  the  infant's  right  to  its  mother's  care. 
The  subject  was  much  discussed  in  the  Labour 
Conference  at  Berlin  in  1890,  and  a  restriction  by 
law  of  women's  labour  at  the  time  of  child-birth  was 
unanimously  declared  to  be  desirable. 

In  the  United  Kingdom,  and  in  most  countries 
of  Europe,  laws  were  afterwards  passed  to  make 
the  employment  of  women  for  one  month  after 
delivery   illegal.     In    Switzerland    a    two    months' 


INFANT    MORTALITY  21 

cessation  of  labour  was  prescribed,  of  which  six 
weeks  must  be  after  child-birth.  The  law  in  our 
country  has  proved  a  dead  letter.  It  was  six  years 
before  the  first  prosecution  was  instituted  by  the 
lady  inspectors  of  the  Home  Office  in  a  Yorkshire 
town.  The  employer  was  convicted  and  fined,  and 
the  unfortunate  woman,  though  she  made  some 
attempt  in  the  witness-box  to  screen  her  employer, 
was  promptly  dismissed  from  her  employment.  Up 
to  the  time  when  the  Committee  on  Physical 
Deterioration  sat,  thirteen  years  after  the  law  was 
enacted,  it  had  only  been  possible  to  institute 
proceedings  in  two  other  cases,  though  the  general 
disregard  of  the  law  is  notorious.  But,  even  if 
the  cessation  from  labour,  recommended  by  the 
Berlin  Conference,  could  be  effectively  enforced,  it 
would  be  useful  to  the  woman  only  as  protecting 
her  against  the  ill-effects  of  premature  activity ;  it 
is  too  short  to  ensure  to  the  child  the  mother's  milk 
and  mother's  care  to  which  it  has  a  right.  Laws 
of  this  kind  can  never  be  enforced  until  the  senti- 
ments and  habits  of  the  workers  themselves  are 
altered,  and  these  laws  become  unnecessary.  Better 
views  as  to  the  duty  of  a  mother  to  her  new-born 
child,  which  still  linger  in  our  population  amongst  the 
Jews  and  the  Irish,  may  hereafter  become  generally 
prevalent.  Neglect  of  babies,  however,  is  not  con- 
fined to  necessitous  workers  ;  it  prevails  amongst 
other  classes  of  society  ;  and  mothers  are  to  be 
found,  even  in  the  highest  ranks,  who  deny  to  their 
infants   their   natural    food   because   nursing   them 


22       THE    CHILDREN    OP    THE    NATION 

interferes  with  the  claims  of  " society"  and  with 
the  pursuit  of  pleasure. 


Plans  for  Reducing  Death-rate 

The  city  of  Cologne  is  provided,  as  are  most 
German  cities,  with  a  body  of  official  visitors  of 
the  poor,  men  and  women  of  education  and  position, 
who  are  under  a  legal  obligation  to  render  service 
in  this  way  to  the  municipality,  and  every  poor 
woman  on  giving  birth  to  a  child  is  visited  by  one 
of  these,  almost  invariably  a  woman.  If  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  mother  are  such  that  she  is 
obliged  to  go  out  to  work  to  earn  her  living,  a 
report  is  made  to  the  municipality,  and  a  daily 
grant  is  sent  in  to  her  out  of  municipal  funds,  on 
condition  that  she  stays  at  home  and  suckles  her 
infant :  the  official  visitor  sees  that  the  condition 
is  fulfilled.  Such  a  plan,  common  in  Prussian 
cities,  is  worthy  of  notice  on  two  grounds.  First, 
it  is  a  recognition  by  the  State  of  the  infant's  right  to 
its  mother's  milk,  and  of  the  State's  own  obligation 
to  see  that  the  right  is  fulfilled.  In  Western  civi- 
lisation the  admission  in  practice  that  it  is  the 
duty  of  public  authority  to  help  those  who  cannot 
help  themselves  is  rare.  In  Oriental  countries 
the  proudest  title  of  the  greatest  potentate  is 
44  Protector  of  the  poor  "  ;  and  the  Hebrew  poet, 
when  extolling  the  majesty  of  Jehovah,  proclaims 
as  his  highest  praise :  "  He  is  a  father  of  the 
fatherless,  and  defendeth  the  cause  of  the  widow, 


INFANT    MORTALITY  23 

even  God  in  His  holy  habitation."  The  second 
point  to  note  in  the  Prussian  system  is,  that  it 
brings  home  to  the  mother  her  U  parental  responsi- 
bility," and  teaches  her  that  her  babe  has  the 
first  claim  upon  her,  even  more  than  the  rest  of 
her  family  or  her  employer.  Some  of  the 
Socialist  Municipalities  in  France  have  adopted 
a  similar  system,  and  in  the  case  of  widows  and 
others  with  children  absolutely  dependent  on  their 
earnings  pay  the  mothers  a  pension  to  stay  at 
home  and  mind  their  children.  An  interesting 
experiment  was  tried  in  Huddersfield  in  1904-5. 
Mr.  Broadbent,  on  being  elected  mayor  on  the 
9th  of  November  1904,  announced  that  he  would 
give  a  prize  of  £1  to  the  mother  of  every  child 
born  during  his  mayoralty,  in  the  district  of 
Huddersfield  with  which  he  was  connected,  who 
produced  it  alive  and  well  at  the  Town  Hall  on 
November  9,  1905.  A  committee  of  ladies  was, 
at  the  same  time,  formed  to  visit  and  advise  the 
mothers.  Upwards  of  a  hundred  infants  were 
produced  at  the  end  of  Mr.  Broadbent's  year  of 
office,  and  the  death-rate  of  infants  in  the  district 
sank  from  134  to  54  in  the  thousand.  So  easily 
can  the  co-operation  of  rich  and  poor  reduce 
infant  mortality!  So  small  a  bribe  will  make  the 
difference  between  life  and  death  to  these  "  valuable 
national  assets " !  The  Huddersfield  example  is 
being  imitated  elsewhere.  It  is  a  well-established 
fact  that  in  our  country  the  death-rate  of  illegitimate 
infants  is  double  that  of  ordinary  infants,  enormous 


24       THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

as  the  latter  is.  In  Leipsic,  every  illegitimate  child 
becomes  on  birth  a  ward  of  the  municipality.  Its 
condition  is  inspected  by  public  officers  from  time  to 
time.  It  may  only  be  put  out  to  nurse  with  persons 
publicly  authorised.  It  is  produced  monthly  at  the 
municipal  offices,  and  is  there  medically  examined. 
The  result  is  that  the  death-rate  of  illegitimate  infants 
in  Leipsic  is  half  that  of  ordinary  infants. 


Artificial  Feeding 

In  rearing  infants  there  is  no  absolutely  satis- 
factory substitute  for  mothers  milk.  The  most 
scientific  system  of  artificial  feeding  is  but  a  poor, 
though  in  some  cases  unavoidable,  makeshift. 
Statistics  show  that  in  the  epidemics  of  children 
the  percentage  of  deaths  among  the  bottle-fed  is 
far  greater  than  among  the  breast-fed.  It  appears 
from  some  statistics  published  in  1905  by  the 
Medical  Officer  of  Health  in  Birmingham  that  out 
of  178  infants  who  died  under  six  months  old  16 
were  fed  at  the  breast,  28  were  partially  fed  at  the 
breast,  and  134  were  artificially  fed ;  and  the 
medical  officer  gives  it  as  his  general  experience 
that  in  the  diseases  of  infants  the  mortality  is  at 
least  30  times  as  great  amongst  those  who  are 
brought  up  by  hand  as  amongst  those  who  have 
been  reared  on  their  natural  food.  But  as  in 
practice  a  large  number  of  infants  have,  in  the 
arrangements  of  modern  social  life,  to  be  brought 
up  by  hand,  it  is  desirable  in  the  interest  of  public 


INFANT    MORTALITY  25 

health  that  the  knowledge  of  how  infants  should 
be  artificially  fed  should  be  widely  diffused  among 
the  people.  The  ignorance  prevalent  on  this 
subject,  not  by  any  means  confined  to  the  poorest 
classes,  is  deplorable.  "  A  little  bit  of  whatever 
we  have  ourselves  "  is  a  common  idea  of  an  appro- 
priate diet  for  infants  who  should  be  receiving 
nothing  but  human  milk. 

How  People  should  be  Taught 

New  "  syllabuses  of  hygiene  "  and  fresh  special 
courses  in  the  elementary  schools  are  a  very  in- 
effective method  of  spreading  the  information 
required.  The  fact  that  the  scholars  in  the 
elementary  schools  are  only  little  children,  and 
the  listlessness  and  stupidity  to  which  the  drill 
of  the  school  system  reduces  them,  are  insurmount- 
able obstacles  to  the  acquisition  there  of  knowledge 
that  will  stick  in  their  memories,  and  that  they  will 
have  the  capacity  to  apply,  after  they  have  left 
school,  to  the  common  affairs  of  life.  The  greater 
part  of  the  teaching  of  cookery,  sewing,  domestic 
economy,  &c,  is  practically  thrown  away,  chiefly 
owing  to  the  tender  age  of  the  children  to  whom 
it  is  taught.  These  special  subjects  of  instruction 
used  to  furnish  needy  managers  with  the  means 
of  "earning"  extra  Government  grants,  and  any 
limitation  of  the  number  of  children  who  might 
be  taught  was  vigorously  opposed.  In  selecting 
subjects,   those  were  often  chosen  in  which  there 


26       THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

was  the  prospect  of  earning  most,  quite  irrespective 
of  their  being  suitable  to  the  children's  surroundings. 
"  Navigation  "  was  at  one  time  a  favourite  special 
subject  in  Midland  towns.  There  was  once  a  school 
in  Greenwich  which  selected  " Animal  Physiology" 
and  ",  English  Grammar "  as  the  subjects  which 
offered  the  best  prospect  of  a  large  subsidy  from 
the  Consolidated  Fund.  This  was  one  of  the 
results :  A  girl  asked  in  the  examination  to 
describe  the  human  body  replied,  in  a  written 
answer  I  have  myself  seen — 

"The  human  body  consists  of  three  parts,  the 
head,  the  chest,  and  the  '  stummick.'  The  head 
contains  the  eyes  and  the  brain  (if  any).  The  chest 
contains  the  heart,  lungs,  and  a  bit  of  the  liver,  and 
the  'stummick'  contains  the  vowels,  which  are  'a,' 
1  e,'  '  i,'  '  o  '  and  '  u,'  and  sometimes  !  w  '  and  '  y.'  " 

The  management  of  infants  and  other  branches 
of  domestic  economy  cannot  be  taught  effectively 
to  girls  under  the  age  of  fifteen  to  seventeen,  who 
can  be  tempted  or  compelled  to  attend  evening 
classes  or  day  nurseries.  Perhaps  the  spread  of 
enlightenment  may  hereafter  induce  young  men  to 
give  a  preference  as  wives  to  girls  who  have 
acquired  the  domestic  knowledge  which  adds  so 
much  to  the  comfort  of  a  home.  Such  a  practice 
would  give  a  great  stimulus  to  evening  classes  on 
domestic  economy,  and  compulsion  would  probably 
become  superfluous.  Knowledge  can  only  be 
effectively  spread  by  the  supervision  of  young 
children  in  their  homes,  and  practical  teaching  of 


INFANT    MORTALITY  27 

the  young  mothers  there,  after  the  manner  of 
Huddersfield  and  Cologne.  Such  a  system  would 
save  thousands  of  lives,  if  it  could  be  established 
with  due  regard  to  the  susceptibilities  of  mothers 
and  to  the  sanctity  of  private  life.  But  it  is 
essential  that  the  visitors  should  not  be  mere 
ignorant  amateurs,  but  properly  qualified  to  give 
advice  and  instruction,  and  should  be  acting  under 
public  authority.  Its  effect  on  the  infant  death- 
rate  would  be  astonishing,  as  the  Huddersfield 
experiment  shows. 


w 


Survival  of  the  Fittest 

An  argument  is  frequently  advanced  by  persons 
who  desire  to  prove  that,  however  praiseworthy  it 
may  be  from  a  humanitarian  point  of  view  to  save 
the  lives  of  infants,  it  is  bad  economy,  and  does  not 
promote  the  improvement  of  the  race.  It  is  an 
interference,  they  say,  with  the  law  of  natural 
selection,  which  is  the  survival  of  the  fittest :  it  is 
the  weaklings  that  die  off,  the  stronger  infants 
survive.  By  keeping  the  *  feeble  alive,  you  cause 
the  degeneration  of  the  race.  There  is  no  informa- 
tion as  to  the  comparative  condition  of  the  infants 
who  live  and  die  which  enables  us  to  bring  this 
theory  to  the  test  of  actual  fact.  But  so  far  as 
our  information  does  go,  the  argument  is  wholly 
erroneous.  Medical  testimony  does  not  support 
the  assertion  that  it  is  the  weaklings  who  die  off. 
Children  at  birth  are  generally  healthy  and    well 


28        THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

nourished,  equally  fit,  equally  likely  to  survive.  It 
is  the  treatment  they  receive  after  birth,  above  all 
the  insufficient  or  improper  nourishment,  that  decides 
whether  they  are  to  live  or  die.  Many  of  the  fatal 
diseases  of  infancy  attack  weak  and  strong  alike, 
and  the  power  to  overcome  the  disease  depends  in 
most  cases  on  post-natal,  not  on  pre-natal,  conditions. 
Of  all  the  causes  of  infants'  deaths,  diarrhoea  is  the 
most  frequent,  and  is  the  one  which  is  most  on 
the  increase.  So  far  as  it  is  epidemic  it  attacks  all 
alike,  and  can  level  the  distinction  between  strong  and 
weak  in  a  few  hours.  Its  predisposing  and  exciting 
cause  is  improper  food,  and  unless  improper  feeding 
is  promptly  stopped  death  is  almost  certain  to  ensue. 
But  there  is  another  serious  objection  to  the 
comfortable  doctrine  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest. 
It  is  that  malnutrition  and  disease  do  not  always 
kill.  They  cause  thousands  of  infants  not  to  die, 
but  to  grow  up  so  damaged  as  to  be  a  lifelong 
burden  on  society.  Rickets  is  the  direct  product 
of  insufficient  and  improper  food  ;  the  necessary 
nourishment  is  not  provided  for  the  growing  bones. 
It  is  not  an  hereditary  taint ;  it  is  not  the  mischief 
of  a  microbe.  Proper  food  will  prevent  it ;  proper 
food  will  cure  it,  if  taken  in  time.  It  is  not  fatal, 
yet  thousands  of  children  grow  up  more  or  less 
crippled  by  this  disease,  and  so  cause  the  greatest 
economic  loss  to  society.  They  cannot,  in  many 
cases,  earn  their  living  at  all ;  in  others,  not  the 
whole  of  it.  But  rickets  does  not  necessarily  kill ; 
its  victims  may  live  to  a  good  old  age. 


INFANT    MORTALITY  29 


Pure  Milk 


It  is  of  little  use  to  spread  amongst  the  people  a 
knowledge  of  how  infants  should  be  fed  if  the  right 
food  cannot  be  obtained.  The  milk  of  animals, 
pure  and  properly  prepared,  is  practically  the  only 
possible  substitute  for  human  milk  :  nothing  else 
should  be  taken  during  the  first  six  months  of  life. 
Whatever  else  is  put  into  the  infant's  inside  passes 
through  undigested.  It  cannot  nourish,  but  it  may 
injure  the  delicate  organs.  In  many  places  pure 
milk  cannot  be  procured.  What  is  to  be  got  is 
dirty  and  polluted,  rather  poison  than  food  to  the 
infant.  The  Public  Health  Acts  have  given  exten- 
sive powers  to  local  authorities  and  to  the  Local 
Government  Board,  which  can  act  independently  of 
local  authorities,  in  order  to  secure  a  supply  of  pure 
milk  to  the  dwellers  in  cities,  under  the  Contagious 
Diseases  (Animals)  Act,  1878. 

The  Local  Government  Board  has  power  to 
make  orders  for — 

(i.)  The  registration  of  cow-keepers,  dairymen, 
&c. 

(ii.)  Inspection  of  cattle  in  dairies,  and  for  pre- 
scribing and  regulating  the  lighting,  ventilation, 
cleansing,  drainage,  and  water  supply  of  dairies  and 
cow-sheds. 

(iii.)  Securing  the  cleanliness  of  milk-stores,  milk- 
shops,  and  vessels. 

(iv.)  Prescribing  precautions  to  be  taken  for  pro- 
tecting milk  against  infection  or  contamination. 


30        THE    CHILDREN    OF   THE    NATION 

(v.)  Authorising  a  local  authority  to  make  such 
orders. 

They  can,  in  short,  protect  milk,  so  far  as  protec- 
tion is  physically  possible,  between  the  cow's  udder 
and  the  baby's  mouth.  Under  these  powers  many 
of  the  leading  City  Councils  have  secured  in  their 
towns  a  supply  of  pure  milk,  and  have  traced  con- 
tamination to  country  places  far  remote  from  the 
city,  and  brought  about  the  immediate  removal  of 
its  causes.  But  in  the  smaller  and  less  enlightened 
local  authorities,  where  keeping  down  the  rates  is 
the  one  object  of  public  administration,  the  powers 
are  not  put  in  force,  and  will  not  be  until  the  people 
who  elect  these  local  bodies  are  awakened  to  a 
sense  of  what  is  for  their  own  and  their  children's 
interest,  and  elect  an  authority  which  will  attend  to 
it.  Meanwhile  in  these  dark  places  infants  must 
either  be  fed  on  other  kinds  of  food  unfit,  to  the 
knowledge  in  many  cases  of  the  mother  herself,  or 
be  given  milk  which  may  be  the  vehicle  of  all  sorts 
of  diseases.  No  food  is  more  chemically  unstable, 
and  more  certain  to  deteriorate  by  exposure  to  the 
air,  than  milk.  In  nature  it  passes  direct  from  the 
body  of  the  dam  to  that  of  the  suckling  without  a 
moment's  contact  with  the  atmosphere.  Exposed 
in  a  shop  and  in  a  shallow  vessel,  it  absorbs  microbes 
at  a  rapid  rate,  as  scientific  analysis  has  proved. 
In  London,  medical  testimony  shows  that  milk 
contains  great  bacterial  contamination.  "  Four 
unpreserved  samples  of  milk,  selected  from  two 
good-class  and  two  poor-class  milk-shops,  gave  an 


INFANT    MORTALITY  31 

average  of  2,370,000  bacteria  per  cubic  centimetre, 
which  is  about  2,000,000  in  excess  of  what  should 
be  present  in  good,  fresh  milk."  So  testified  Dr. 
Vincent  before  the  Committee  on  Physical  Deterio- 
ration, and,  as  a  proof  of  the  extreme  ignorance 
that  prevails  even  among  the  better  class  of  dealers 
as  to  the  precautions  that  should  be  taken  to  pre- 
serve the  purity  of  milk,  he  instanced  the  practice 
of  a  prominent  dairy  company  in  keeping  a  wide 
bowl  of  milk  standing  on  the  counter  of  a  shop  in 
the  West  End  within  a  few  yards  of  a  continuous 
and  dense  traffic.  This  they  labelled  "  Pure  Milk," 
whereas  from  the  wide  surface  exposed  to  con- 
tamination it  was  imbibing  the  maximum  of  bacterial 
poison  and  "  should  be  pitched  down  the  drain." 
And  mothers  wonder  where  their  children  can  have 
caught  the  diphtheria  or  scarlet  fever  of  which  they 
die !  Country  districts  are  in  the  matter  of  milk 
supply  even  worse  off  than  towns.  In  most  of 
them  milk — even  skim-milk — is  a  luxury  quite  un- 
attainable by  the  poor.  The  great  advantage  which 
country  children  enjoy  over  town  children  in  purer 
air  and  better  surroundings  is  Jessened  by  the 
impossibility  of  obtaining  suitable  food. 

Municipal  Supply 

Some  of  the  most  advanced  municipalities  have 
already  established  Municipal  Milk  Depots,  in  which 
pure  milk  mixed  with  the  proper  quantity  of  pure 
water  can  be  procured  in  sealed  bottles,  each  contain- 


32       THE    CHILDREN    OF   THE    NATION 

ing  a  meal  for  an  infant  of  given  age.  The  price 
is  as  low  as  is  consistent  with  the  depot  being  self- 
supporting.  From  the  point  of  view  of  public 
health  such  a  system  cannot  be  too  highly  com- 
mended. It  removes  the  risks  which  the  purest 
milk  runs  after  it  reaches  the  home  of  the  consumer — 
the  dirt  of  the  house,  the  pollution  from  surrounding 
articles,  the  peril  of  the  long  flexible  feeding  tube, 
which  cannot  be  kept  clean,  the  possibility  of 
mixing  with  contaminated  water,  or  the  keeping  of 
milk  till  it  turns  sour.  The  supply  of  municipal 
meals  for  infants  is  at  present  experimental  and 
exceptional.  It  is  in  the  power  of  the  people  of 
any  place  to  elect  a  local  authority  with  a  mandate 
to  carry  such  a  system  into  practice. 


CHAPTER   III 

CHILDHOOD    UNDER    SCHOOL-AGE 

Parental  Care 

BETWEEN  infancy  and  the  tender  age  at 
which  we  pretend  to  begin  the  " education" 
of  children  there  is  a  gap.  School  is  compulsory  at 
five  years  of  age  ;  it  is  permitted  at  three ;  and  it 
often  begins  some  months  earlier.  But  there  is  a 
space  of  about  two  years  after  the  child  has  begun 
to  talk  and  run  about  before  the  State  concerns 
itself  at  all  about  its  education.  During  this  period, 
the  child  is  left  to  the  uncontrolled  and  unwatched 
responsibility  of  its  parents.  The  public  shuts  its 
eyes,  and  hopes  that  all  is  going  on  well.  In  most 
cases  this  close-time  of  exemption  from  interference 
with  natural  growth  and  development  is  good  for  the 
child.  If  it  gets  wholesome  food,  however  coarse, 
even  though  scanty  in  quantity,  it  thrives,  provided 
that  the  first  necessity  of  life  is  not  stinted — 
abundance  of  fresh  air. 

Fresh  Air 

I  have  seen  magnificent  children  living  in  hovels 
condemned  as  unfit  for  human  habitation,   in  the 

D  33 


34       THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

west  of  Ireland,  models  of  health  and  vigour.  The 
explanation  was  that  they  lived  almost  entirely  in 
the  open  air.  The  children  of  gipsies  and  vagrants 
who  live  in  tents  on  commons,  though  filthy  and 
untaught,  are  far  healthier  in  their  free,  open-air 
surroundings  than  the  corresponding  class  in  the 
slums  of  the  city.  It  would  be  a  cruel  reform  to 
drive  these  children  and  their  parents  into  settled 
habitations  until  the  houses  of  the  poor  are  made 
compatible  with  healthy  and  decent  life,  or  to  coop 
up  the  wild  children  in  our  elementary  schools 
until  these  are  first  reformed,  and  more  attention  is 
paid  by  the  school  authority  to  the  health  and 
vigour  of  the  children  whom  it  undertakes  to 
1 'educate."  But  these  healthy  conditions  prevail 
only  in  country  districts.  The  population  is 
migrating  to  the  towns.  The  country  itself  is  in 
many  places  being  converted  into  slums  by  the 
building  for  private  profit  of  streets  of  mean  and 
squalid  habitations,  without  gardens  and  with  no 
more  privacy  than  the  tenement  barrack.  The 
result  is  that  the  years  which  follow  babyhood  are 
years  in  which  much  mischief  is  done,  always 
preventable  but  sometimes  irremediable.  The 
death-rate,  though  not  so  terrible  as  in  the  first 
year  of  life,  remains  abnormally  high  up  to  five 
years  of  age.  In  the  second  year  of  life  it  is  fifty- 
five  in  the  thousand  for  boys  and  fifty-two  for  girls. 
In  the  slums  of  great  cities  children  are  crammed 
into  single-room  tenements,  without  fresh  air  to 
breathe.     Poverty   forbids   any  source  of  warmth, 


CHILDHOOD    UNDER    SCHOOL-AGE        35 

except  that  derived  from  the  human  body,  and 
therefore  when  the  temperature  is  low,  every  chink 
by  which  the  cold  fresh  air  can  penetrate  is  stuffed 
up  with  filthy  rags,  and  the  child  lives  and  sleeps  in 
an  atmosphere  loaded  with  germs  and  carbonic  acid 
and  deficient  in  oxygen.  Out  of  doors,  in  the 
impure  air  of  the  street,  playing  in  dirt  and  dust 
swarming  with  bacteria,  its  sanitary  condition  is 
little  better. 


Food 

Food,  during  this  critical  time  upon  which  its 
future  health  and  vigour  so  largely  depend,  is 
frequently  most  improper  in  quality  as  well  as 
deficient  in  quantity.  It  is  not  only  that  a  large 
portion  of  the  growing  child  population  has  to  share 
the  poverty  of  parents,  and  scarcely  ever  rises  from 
a  meal  with  appetite  really  satisfied  ;  but  even 
among  parents  fairly  well  off  ignorance  of  how 
children  should  be  nourished  is  so  profound  that 
their  children  suffer  as  much  from  improper  food  as 
the  children  of  the  poorer  from  hunger.  Peri- 
winkles, red-herrings,  and  cheese  are  considered  as 
good  for  babies  of  two  years  old  in  Lancashire  as 
milk  and  rice-puddings  ;  and  "a  bit  of  everything 
we  have  ourselves,"  including  beer  and  gin,  is 
regarded  as  the  most  generous  method  of  catering 
for  the  little  children  of  many  a  prosperous  worker's 
family. 


36       THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

Medical  Supervision 

During  this  most  important  period  of  growth  and 
development  poor  children  are  practically  entirely 
deprived,  unless  seized  with  infectious  illness,  of  all 
medical  supervision,  and  of  all  medical  aid  except  in 
the  last  extremity  when  the  necessity  of  a  death  certi- 
ficate is  imminent.  It  is  true  that  they  have  a  legal 
right  to  be  visited  and  prescribed  for  in  sickness 
by  a  public  doctor.  The  law  casts  specifically  upon 
parents  the  duty  of  applying  for  this  assistance  when 
they  are  unable  to  pay  for  a  doctor  themselves,  and 
upon  Boards  of  Guardians  the  obligation  to  supply  it. 
The  latter  are  liable  to  be  indicted  for  misdemeanour 
if  they  neglect  to  pay  proper  attention  to  a  sick  and 
destitute  child.  But  the  administration  of  the  law 
is  so  cunningly  devised  as  to  ensure  that  the  parent 
will  not  perform  his  natural  and  statutory  duty,  and 
that  the  Board  of  Guardians  will  so  elude  its  statu- 
tory obligation.  Superior  persons  who  administer 
the  Poor  Law  on  scientific  principles  regard  an 
application  for  medical  relief,  even  for  a  sick  child, 
as  a  first  step  in  pauperism  to  be  sternly  and 
resolutely  repressed.  They  therefore  apply  to 
the  parent  who  makes  such  a  demand  deterrents 
which  will  effectually  discourage  him  from  ever 
making  it  again.  It  is  in  vain  that  the  law 
declares  that  medical  relief  shall  not  pauperise  or 
deprive  the  parent  of  his  vote.  For  such  a  loss 
the  parent  in  general  cares  little.  Loss  of  a  day's 
work    or   the  harassing  demands   of  the  relieving 


CHILDHOOD    UNDER    SCHOOL-AGE        37 

officer  for  repayment  of  the  doctor's  charges  are 
much  more  real  evils.  In  Ireland,  where  the 
same  right  to  medical  aid  exists,  the  children  in 
practice  obtain  it.  Every  Union  in  Ireland  is 
divided  into  dispensary  districts,  to  each  of 
which  is  attached  a  medical  officer  and  a  qualified 
midwife.  The  poor  are  entitled  to  free  medical 
relief.  In  each  Dispensary  District  wardens  are 
appointed,  who  issue  black  tickets  entitling  to  free 
medical  relief  at  the  dispensaries,  and  red  tickets 
entitling  to  a  free  visit  from  the  medical  officer. 
There  is  a  district  hospital  in  each  Union  to 
which  cases  can  be  sent  for  treatment  by  the 
district  medical  officer.  It  may  be  said  that  Irish- 
men have  less  sturdy  independence  than  English- 
men, so  that  Poor  Law  Guardians  fail  to  frighten 
him  into  the  abandonment  of  his  child's  rights ; 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  Irish  parents  set  an  example 
to  the  rest  of  the  United  Kingdom  in  their  love 
for  their  children,  and  parental  responsibility  is 
with  them  a  reality. 


Origin  of  Infectious  Disease 

If  society  were  far-seeing  and  wise,  it  would 
adopt  towards  the  poor  parents  of  poor  children 
a  diametrically  opposite  plan.  So  far  from 
keeping  doctors  out  of  the  houses  of  the  poor, 
every  opportunity  would  be  seized  for  obtaining 
a  footing  in  them.  From  the  point  of  view  of 
public    health    these  poor  little   children,  between 


38       THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

babyhood  and  school  age,  form  a  very  important 
section  of  the  population.  They  are  the  nursery 
in  which  deadly  microbes  and  the  germs  of  infectious 
diseases  grow  and  multiply.  The  most  elementary 
principles  of  health  demand  the  prompt  destruction 
of  germs  of  disease  at  their  source.  Our  system 
allows  the  deadly  army  to  assemble  in  secret 
behind  the  closed  doors  of  the  poor  man's  dwell- 
ing, and  to  burst  forth  in  full  strength  to  sweep 
with  destruction  the  nurseries  of  the  rich.  A  poor 
mans  child  has  a  sore  throat,  the  mother  would 
if  she  could  consult  a  doctor,  but  the  father  dreads 
the  deterrent  measures  of  the  Poor  Law — he  is  too 
poor  to  pay ;  there  are  no  distressing  symptoms, 
so  he  chances  it.  The  incipient  small-pox,  or 
measles,  or  diphtheria,  or  scarlatina,  which  the 
doctor  could  have  immediately  diagnosed  and 
stamped  out,  runs  its  course,  infection  is  carried 
into  the  streets  and  the  schools ;  it  becomes  an 
epidemic,  which  costs  hundreds  of  lives,  not  only 
of  the  poor  but  of  the  rich  as  well,  all  of  which  a 
doctor's  visit  and  simple  precautions  costing  a  few 
shillings  might  have  prevented.  The  disease  of 
tuberculosis  is  now  recognised  to  be  not,  as  was 
long  supposed,  a  hereditary  disease.  There  may 
be  a  hereditary  condition  of  the  body  predisposing 
to  it,  but  the  actual  disease  is  introduced  from 
without  by  a  microbe.  It  is  a  terribly  fatal  disease 
in  this  country,  causing  one-eighth  of  all  the 
deaths  and  carrying  off  one-half  of  all  those  who 
die   in   the  prime    of    life    between     25    and    35. 


CHILDHOOD    UNDER    SCHOOL-AGE        39 

"  The  well-to-do,"  says  Sir  William  Broadbent, 
u  never  need  have  consumption  unless  infected  by 
the  poor."  The  favourite  breeding-ground  of  the 
tuberculosis  microbe  is  the  bodies  of  ill-nourished 
young  children.  By  these  they  are  carried  into  the 
streets  and  into  the  schools,  without  recognition  or 
check,  and  thus  affect  the  bodies  of  other  children 
and  of  the  whole  population.  Some  supervision 
over  the  young,  at  the  earliest  period  of  life 
possible,  is  essential  to  any  steps  to  stamp  out 
this  terrible  disease. 

Double  Government 

The  division  of  sanitary  responsibility  between 
two  local  authorities  is  mischievous.  The  munici- 
pality, which  has  to  defray  the  expense  of  epidemics, 
takes  in  general  a  much  broader  view  of  public 
health,  and  is  much  more  ready  to  spend  public 
money  on  prevention,  which  is  both  cheaper  and 
better  than  cure,  than  is  the  Board  of  Guardians ; 
their  narrower  energies  are  directed  to  keeping 
down  the  rates  and  repressing  the  importunities 
of  the  poor.  Double  government  is  always  in- 
effective and  expensive.  Local  administration 
will  never  be  efficiently  conducted  till  the  final 
financial  control  is  concentrated  in  one  body, 
responsible  to  the  ratepayers  for  all  expenditure 
and  having  complete  and  undivided  command  over 
local  revenues  and  local  finance.  Education  has 
been  already  vested  in  the  municipal  body : 
administration   of  the    Poor  Law  will  follow.     In 


40       THE    CHILDREN    OF   THE    NATION 

the  meanwhile  a  step  in  the  right  direction  might 
be  taken,  by  vesting  in  the  municipality  every 
function  which  relates  to  public  health.  Parliament 
has  long  ago  enacted  that  medical  relief  is  not  to 
pauperise.  But  Boards  of  Guardians  have  made 
the  law  of  none  effect  by  their  regulations.  Medical 
and  other  relief  are  blended  as  much  as  possible  in 
their  proceedings.  If  the  administration  of  medical 
aid  to  the  poor  was  entrusted  to  an  entirely  separate 
body,  free  from  the  pauper  taint  of  Boards  of 
Guardians,  the  intentions  of  Parliament  would  be 
carried  into  effect,  and  the  health  of  the  people 
would  be  greatly  improved.  But  in  the  case  of 
children  at  least  it  is  essential  that  no  obstacle 
should  be  interposed  if  there  is  any  suspicion  of 
incipient  infectious  disease.  In  this  contingency 
the  visit  of  the  doctor  should  be  free ;  it  is  made 
as  much  in  the  interest  of  society,  as  in  that  of 
the  child  or  its  parents,  and  it  is  just  that  society 
should  pay. 

Nurseries 

Efforts  to  establish  public  nurseries  for  the  care 
of  young  children  while  their  mothers  go  out  to 
work  have  hitherto  in  this  country  met  with  little 
success.  In  France  institutions  of  this  kind 
have  taken  root  and  flourish.  The  first  creche 
was  established  by  M.  Marbeau  in  Paris, 
in  the  Rue  de  Chaillot,  in  1844.  Its  de- 
sign was  to  help  working  women  to  bring  up 
their   new-born  children   without   giving    up   their 


CHILDHOOD    UNDER    SCHOOL-AGE        41 

employment,  in  order  to  encourage  matrimony 
and  the  procreation  of  children.  Creches,  on  the 
plan  of  that  in  the  Rue  de  Chaillot,  soon  spread 
throughout  the  towns  of  France,  and  extended  to 
Brussels,  Milan,  and  Vienna.  At  M.  Marbeau's 
death,  in  1875,  there  were  35  creches  in  Paris,  and 
nearly  100  in  other  towns  of  France.  At  present 
the  number  is  stated  to  be  upwards  of  500.  All 
creches  in  France  are  now  under  the  control  and 
supervision  of  the  Prefet.  The  number  of  children 
who  may  be  admitted  is  fixed  by  him ;  the  creche 
is  under  Government  inspection,  and  must  be  under 
the  control  of  a  doctor.  Factory  owners  have  in 
many  places  established  creches  for  their  work- 
people ;  and  some  of  the  Town  Councils  have 
set  up  municipal  creches  supported  by  grants  from 
the  central  government,  by  fetes,  and  by  contri- 
butions from  the  public  revenue  of  the  town. 
English  and  Scotch  mothers  "  appear  to  have," 
according  to  the  evidence  of  Miss  Anderson,  the 
factory  inspector,  "an  instinctive  prejudice  in 
favour  of  individual  care  by  nurses.  Generally 
the  nurse  is  a  relation  of  the  mother  who,  on  account 
of  increasing  years,  has  given  up  work  at  the 
mill."  Such  "  nurses "  rarely  take  more  than  one 
baby  at  a  time,  but  they  will  take  two  or  three 
children  of  one  family.  During  a  depression  of 
trade,  the  master  of  a  workhouse  "had  had  a 
large  increase  in  the  number  of  old  and  widowed 
women,  no  longer  wanted  to  mind  the  home  and 
children  while  the  mother  went  to   the  mill."     In 


42       THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

the  great  cotton  strike,  which  took  place  in 
Preston  in  1853,  it  is  recorded  by  the  Rev. 
John  Clay,  chaplain  of  the  prison  at  Preston, 
that  there  was  a  great  diminution  in  the  mortality 
in  the  town  of  children  under  5  years  of  age. 
It  went  down  from  594  in  the  six  months  before 
the  strike  to  497  in  the  six  months  that  the  strike 
lasted,  and  he  observes :  "  From  reliable  data  obtained 
from  a  trustworthy  source  it  may  be  estimated  that 
1,100  female  operatives  in  Preston  had  children 
under  five  years  of  age.  When  these  mothers 
were  occupied  at  their  work  in  the  factories  their 
infants  were  committed  to  hired  nurses,  children, 
or  other  protectors  whose  care  would  be  very 
inferior  to  that  of  a  mother.  But  while  the  strike 
lasted  mother  and  child  were  in  their  proper  places, 
the  former  gratifying  maternal  feelings  and  instincts 
from  which,  under  the  ordinary  circumstances  of 
her  position,  she  is  debarred,  and  the  latter 
profiting  by  the  care  and  affection  which  none 
but  a  mother  can  supply.  It  is  not  assuming 
too  much  to  say,  therefore,  that  in  this  bringing 
together  of  mother  and  child  the  diminished 
infant  mortality  is  accounted  for;  and  grave 
consideration  ought  to  be  given  to  the  subject." 
In  many  cases  no  provision  of  any  kind  is  made 
for  taking  care  of  the  little  children.  They  are 
just  left  to  take  their  chance.  Miss  Anderson 
had  received  particulars  of  144  cases,  where  the 
health  visitors  recently  found  two,  three,  or  more, 
very  young  children  left  alone  in  the  house  (in  some 


CHILDHOOD    UNDER    SCHOOL-AGE        43 

cases  locked  in)  while  the  mother  was  at  the  mill, 
with  only  such  food  as  the  mother  could  prepare 
overnight  or  in  the  early  morning  before  leaving. 
The  care  of  infants  by  individual  nurses  would  be 
much  more  consistent  with  public  health  if  a  system 
of  registration  and  licence  were  established ;  and 
the  business  might  gradually  be  restricted  to  persons 
who  possess  some  qualification  for  taking  care  of 
infants.  It  would  be,  of  course,  impossible  to  pre- 
vent mothers  entrusting  their  children  to  relatives, 
or  to  prevent  the  latter  from  receiving  some  recom- 
pense for  their  services  ;  but  the  regular  business 
of  nursing  young  children  for  payment  might  be 
restricted,  as  other  callings  which  require  special 
knowledge  and  skill,  to  those  who  are  certified 
by  public  authority  to  be  competent  to  perform 
the  duties  which  they  have  undertaken.  Mean- 
while a  certain  number  of  nurseries  for  infants 
already  exist  in  this  country,  and  more  are  being 
continually  added  by  the  benevolence  of  the  public. 
The  city  of  Glasgow  has  for  many  years  kept  a 
lodging-house  for  working  women  who  are  widows, 
and  arranges  for  the  care  of  their  children  while 
they  are  absent  at  work  as  part  of  the  accommo- 
dation which  the  city  provides  for  these  tenants. 
There  are  at  present  no  public  regulations  to 
which  infant  nurseries — except  those  called  "  Infant 
Schools,"  to  which  a  subsequent  chapter  will  be 
devoted — are  liable.  It  is  clear  that  they  ought 
to  be  under  competent  medical  supervision.  The 
bringing  together  of  a   number   of  little   children 


44        THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

is  in  itself  a  source  of  public  danger,  as  the 
epidemics,  which  have  followed  children's  *  'parties," 
public  and  private,  have  repeatedly  shown,  and 
the  number  allowed  in  any  one  establishment 
should  be  from  the  first  rigidly  kept  down.  Chil- 
dren, like  any  other  material  on  which  operations 
have  to  be  performed,  can  be  dealt  with  wholesale 
in  large  numbers  at  a  much  less  first  cost  than 
retail  in  smaller  numbers  ;  and  this  has  already 
led  persons  who  do  not  look  very  far  ahead  to 
erect  enormous  schools.  But  the  practice  turns 
out  costly  in  the  end,  by  reason  of  the  easy  spread 
amongst  these  children,  unnaturally  crowded  to- 
gether, of  disease  and  mischief  of  various  kinds  : 
it  should  be  strictly  prohibited  in  the  case  of  infant 
nurseries. 

The  establishment  of  infant  nurseries  might  serve 
one  most  useful  purpose,  to  which  attention  was 
called  by  the  Committee  on  Physical  Deterioration. 
They  could  be  made  useful  for  teaching  older 
girls  the  rudiments  of  infant  management  and 
feeding.  Miss  Eves,  who  keeps  a  creche  at  a 
Settlement  in  the  East  of  London,  thinks  that  as 
an  instrument  of  educating  women  in  the  care  of 
children  the  creche  is  greatly  superior  to  a  County 
Council  lecture  :  "  These  are  very  good  as  far  as 
they  go,  but  you  cannot  teach  people  about  a  baby 
unless  you  have  the  baby  there.  I  am  an  old  science 
student,  and  I  worked  for  years  in  a  laboratory,  and 
I  do  not  believe  in  teaching  these  things  unless  you 
have  the  things  there  to  show.     I  have  found  the 


CHILDHOOD    UNDER    SCHOOL-AGE        45 

mothers  anxious  to  learn,  the  small  number  that  I 
have  had  to  deal  with,  and  the  girls  are  very  fond  of 
children  and  very  interested  in  anything  practical. 
I  think  if  you  had  an  attractive  course  of  lessons, 
and  had  the  babies  there  to  show  them  how  to 
wash,  dress,  and  feed  them,  the  girls  would  come 
and  be  interested  in  it."  Many  other  witnesses 
gave  evidence  to  the  same  effect.  The  committee 
recommended  in  their  report  that  wherever 
municipal  creches  were  established,  girls  over  14 
might  be  made  to  attend  occasionally,  and  the 
teaching  of  infant  management  to  such  girls 
should  be  eligible  for  aid  from  the  grant  for 
public  education.  There  is  no  doubt  that  under 
Public  Health  Acts  municipal  and  urban  councils 
have  power  without  any  further  legislation  to 
establish  infant  nurseries. 

Parental  Responsibility 

An  objection  is  made  to  the  establishment  of 
nurseries  on  the  ground  that  it  weakens  parental 
responsibility,  and  encourages  mothers  to  go  to 
work  to  earn  money  instead  of  staying  at  home 
to  mind  their  babies.  A  similar  objection  is 
made  to  every  proposal  for  the  intervention  of 
public  authority  to  improve  the  physical  condition 
of  children,  notably  to  the  suggestion  that  they 
should  be  fed  before  they  are  taught  in  the  public 
elementary  schools.  There  are  two  answers  to  all 
objections  of  this  kind :  first,  that  withholding  aid 


46       THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

from  the  child  does  not  produce,  and  is  never  likely 
to  produce,  the  proposed  effect  upon  the  parent ; 
and  secondly,  that  a  child  is  worth  a  great  deal  too 
much  to  be  used  for  the  purpose  of  improving  the 
moral  character  of  its  parent.  That  infants  have 
the  first  claim  on  their  mother's  time  and  attention 
is  undoubted :  but  the  practice  of  leaving  the  little 
ones  to  shift  for  themselves,  or  handing  them  over 
to  the  care  of  incompetent  nurses  while  the  mother 
goes  abroad  to  earn  wages,  has  unfortunately 
established  itself  in  the  social  condition  of  our 
people.  Laws  will  not  put  a  stop  to  it,  as  the 
ineffrcacy  of  the  law  against  the  employment  of 
women  immediately  after  childbirth  has  proved ; 
still  less  would  the  practice  be  put  down  by  the 
closing  of  all  the  creches.  Moreover,  under  our 
present  social  system,  a  great  number  of  women 
have  to  go  out  to  work,  or  see  their  children  starve : 
widows  and  the  wives  of  broken-down  bread- 
winners are  expected  to  work  to  maintain  their 
families,  and  for  their  children  some  provision  ought 
to  be  made.  But  even  if  the  withholding  of  aid 
to  infants  whose  mothers  go  out  to  work  would 
ultimately  bring  about  the  suppression  of  the 
practice,  what  a  length  of  time  the  process  would 
occupy,  and  how  many  children  would  have  to  be 
sacrificed  to  bring  about  this  social  reform  !  The 
cost  would  be  too  great.  In  an  ideal  state  of 
society  no  mother  of  young  children  would  have 
to  work  except  in  the  care  of  her  family ;  but  to 
abandon  these  children   to   their   fate   would   risk 


CHILDHOOD    UNDER    SCHOOL-AGE        47 

their     destruction     without     bringing    about    the 
desired  result. 

Infant  Insurance 

Observations  were  made  by  several  witnesses 
who  gave  evidence  before  the  Committee  on 
Physical  Deterioration  on  the  prejudicial  effect 
upon  the  lives  of  infants  and  young  children,  caused 
by  insurance,  not  so  much  in  large  public  insurance 
companies  as  in  certain  burial  societies  or  clubs. 
Public  attention  was  called  to  this  matter  more 
than  fifty  years  ago  by  the  Rev.  John  Clay, 
Chaplain  of  the  Preston  Prison,  before  mentioned. 
During  his  researches  into  the  causes  of  infant 
mortality  in  Preston,  he  became  convinced  "that 
in  hundreds  and  thousands  of  instances  the  prospect 
of  '  burial  money '  created  direct  and  powerful  in- 
ducements to  parental  neglect  and  cruelty."  From 
that  time  he  sought  to  stir  up  public  opinion  on 
the  subject  by  letters  and  pamphlets,  and,  aided  by 
the  panic  created  by  the  bringing  to  justice  of  the 
murderers  of  several  children  for  the  purpose  of 
obtaining  burial  money,  he  succeeded  so  far  that 
a  Committee  of  the  House  of  Commons  was 
appointed  in  1853,  before  which  he  gave  evidence. 
But,  like  other  social  reformers,  he  failed  to  awaken 
the  conscience  of  the  governing  classes.  "  They'll 
do  nothing,"  he  said.  "  The  pot-houses  back  the 
clubs,  and  I  have  long  ceased  to  hope  for  anything 
from  M.P.'s,  when  the  pot-house  interest  has  to  be 
meddled  with  :  they  dare  not  offend  the  publicans, 


48       THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

and  so  risk  the  loss  of  their  seats."  Are  the 
influences  which  affect  M.P.'s  much  changed  since 
fifty  years  ago  ?  What  is  required  is  that  no  money 
should  be  received  from  a  burial  club  but  only  a 
gratuitous  funeral.  When  several  insured  children 
die  at  the  same  time,  as  often  happens  in  the  case 
of  epidemics,  the  sums  received  from  the  club  are 
generally  far  greater  than  the  cost  of  the  joint 
funeral,  and  the  surplus  is  frequently  spent  in 
revelry  and  drunkenness.  "  I  do  not  propose," 
wrote  Mr.  Clay  in  1854  to  the  late  Lord  Derby 
(then  Lord  Stanley),  "  to  suppress  burial  clubs 
entirely,  but  to  limit  their  operation  to  the  purpose 
for  which  I  imagine  they  were  originally  intended, 
viz.,  the  defraying  of  the  actual  funeral  expenses 
of  a  deceased  member.  By  13  and  14  Vic. : 
c.  115,  '  No  sum  is  to  be  paid  on  the  death  of  a 
child  under  ten  years  of  age,  except  for  the  actual 
funeral  expenses,  not  exceeding  ^3,  which  shall 
be  paid  to  the  undertaker,  &c.'  But  *  this  Act 
is  to  be  in  force '  only  for  one  year  after  '  the 
time  of  passing,  and  thence  to  the  end  of  the  next 
session  of  Parliament,'  so  that  the  restraint  intended 
is  no  longer,  even  nominally,  the  law  ;  and  in  point 
of  fact  never  took  effect  at  all.  If  the  clubs  were 
actually  limited  to  the  funeral  expenses  there  would 
be  no  objection  to  the  providing  such  expenses  for 
young  children.  ...  I  think  an  ailing  child  would 
not  be  neglected  for  the  sake  of  a  gratuitous 
funeral  ;  though  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
hundreds    of  children   have   been   allowed    to   die 


CHILDHOOD    UNDER    SCHOOL-AGE        49 

for  the  sake  of  the  money  payable  on  their  death 
— the  amount  of  which  money  depends  on  the 
number  of  clubs  in  which  the  child  may  have 
been  enrolled."  In  1902  a  sub-committee  was 
appointed  by  the  Corporation  of  Preston  to  con- 
sider the  causes  of  the  high  infant  mortality  in 
that  town,  and  they  reported  that  "  among  the 
causes  may  be  mentioned  '  insurance,'  by  which 
the  death  of  a  child  brings  a  monetary  gain  to 
the  parents."  Dr.  Malins,  Professor  of  Midwifery 
in  the  University  of  Birmingham,  said  before  the 
Committee  on  Physical  Deterioration,  "  the  tempta- 
tion to  infant  insurance  is  very  great,  particularly 
in  times  of  poverty  or  in  times  of  distress,  and  it 
overcomes  parental  instinct.  The  fact  of  a  large 
family  existing  and  the  greater  number  of  them 
starving  or  having  insufficient  food,  makes  them 
less  careful  about  the  latest  offspring."  Asked 
whether  he  would  limit  the  sum  recovered  to  the 
actual  expense  of  burial,  he  replied,  "Yes,  that 
would  be  a  wise  precaution.  I  think-  that  would 
have  a  very  great  influence  in  diminishing  the 
number  of  infant  insurances."  The  expired  Act 
of  13  and  14  Vic:  c.  115  might  be  re-enacted, 
and  made  permanent  with  great  advantage  to 
child  life. 


CHAPTER   IV 

MEDICAL    INSPECTION    OF   SCHOOL    CHILDREN 

A  Golden  Opportunity  Lost 

SCHOOL-TIME  is  the  period  at  which  the 
peoples  health  can  be  most  easily  and  most 
effectively  dealt  with  by  public  authority.  There 
is  then  an  opportunity  of  ascertaining  and  watch- 
ing the  condition  of  children  from  day  to  day,  and 
of  bringing  influences  to  bear  to  improve  their 
health  which  is  impossible  at  any  other  time  of  life. 
But  this  golden  opportunity  is  at  present  almost 
entirely  neglected.  It  is  the  settled  principle  of 
the  Board  of  Education  that  they,  and  the  local 
Education  authorities  which  act  under  them,  have 
no  responsibility  for  the  bodily  health  of  the 
children,  whom  they  force  to  attend  for  instruction 
in  their  schools.  The  President  of  the  Board  of 
Education  under  the  late  Government  is  reported 
to  have  said  that  it  was  no  part  of  the  duty  of 
the  Board  to  see  that  the  children  came  to  school 
properly  fed  or  properly  clothed.     When  the  head 

of  a   public  department   makes  such  a   statement 

50 


MEDICAL    INSPECTION  51 

it  is  understood  that  he  is  giving  utterance  to  the 
settled  policy  of  his  department,  which  is,  in  the 
long  run,  controlled  by  the  permanent  Civil  servants 
in  the  office.  Like  Miss  Susan  Nipper,  they  are 
"permanencies,"  while  the  Parliamentary  head  is 
only  a  "  temporary."  The  latter  must  at  first 
necessarily  be  guided  by  their  advice ;  otherwise 
they  quickly  land  him  in  a  quagmire.  After  he 
has  gained  some  experience,  he  may,  if  able  and 
energetic,  impose  upon  his  nominal  subordinates 
some  ideas  of  his  own ;  but  the  influence  so 
exercised  is  very  transient  in  its  effects.  When 
after  a  few  years  he  is  superseded  by  political 
changes,  the  officials  abolish,  as  far  as  possible, 
everything  he  has  done,  and  revert  to  the  old 
practice  and  policy.  Some  slight  inroads,  which 
may  prove  of  a  more  permanent  character,  have  in 
recent  years  been  made  into  the  conservatism  of  the 
official  view,  but  it  still  remains  the  basis  of  educa- 
tional policy  that  it  is  with  the  minds  and  not  with 
the  bodies  of  the  scholars  that  education  authorities 
have  to  deal.  The  law  of  the  land  appears  to  require 
that  parents  should  send  their  children  to  school 
in  a  fit  state  to  receive  the  instruction  provided 
at  the  public  cost,  but  the  language  of  the  Educa- 
tion Act  is  obscure,  and  if  the  law  is  that  which 
I  have  stated  no  attempt  is  ever  made  to  put  it  in 
force.  It  is  not  even  suggested  to  the  education 
authorities  that  it  is  any  part  of  their  functions  to 
see  that  this  law  is  carried  out.  The  child  may 
come  dirty,  ragged,  hungry,  diseased,   or  wearied 


52       THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

out  with  labour ;  the  whole  duty  of  the  school 
authority  appears  to  be  to  pass  it  through  the 
education  mill,  regardless  of  the  consequences  or 
the  effect.  To  do  otherwise,  and  to  interfere  in  the 
matter  of  the  child's  clothing,  or  food,  or  bodily 
condition,  would  be  to  undermine  parental  responsi- 
bility, and  it  is  better  to  leave  the  child  to  perish 
rather  than  to  interfere  with  the  moral  dignity  and 
independence  of  the  parent.  This  attitude  of  the 
Board  of  Education  is  repugnant  to  the  most 
elementary  principles  of  public  duty  and  interest. 
It  is  inconsistent  with  public  safety.  The  aggre- 
gation of  thousands  of  young  children  in  closed 
buildings  is  in  itself  a  public  danger,  unless 
proper  precautions  are  taken  to  prevent  the  intro- 
duction and  spread  of  infectious  disease.  It  is 
contrary  to  public  economy,  because  the  neglect 
of  the  medical  care  of  destitute  and  ailing  children 
in  their  youth  entails  the  much  greater  cost  of 
maintaining  a  good  many  of  them  in  after-life,  when 
they  have  grown  up  unfit  to  earn  their  own  living. 
It  offends  against  the  principles  of  humanity,  because 
it  is  cruel  to  work  a  hungry  and  ailing  child,  either 
in  body  or  mind.  "  To  subject  a  half-starved  child," 
says  Dr.  Mackenzie,  *  to  the  routine  of  school 
would  be  the  height  of  cruelty."  It  is  cruelty 
perpetrated  on  thousands  every  day.  Lastly,  it  is 
unpatriotic,  for  it  flings  away  an  opportunity  of 
securing  that  the  coming  race  of  Englishmen  shall 
be  strong  and  vigorous.  The  advanced  municipalities 
do  not  act  on  such  a  principle ;  but  their  action  is 


MEDICAL    INSPECTION  53 

spontaneous,  not  stimulated  by  any  pressure  from  the 
central  authority  at  Whitehall.  The  real  objection 
to  the  discharge  by  public  authority  of  its  duty  is 
the  unwise  opposition  to  immediate  expense,  which 
mostly  prevails  when  the  interests  of  the  poor  are 
at  stake  :  it  is  fear  of  the  cost  that  prompts  the 
desire  to  leave  everything  to  parents,  even  when 
it  is  known  that  they  will  not  or  cannot  perform 
their  duty.  Millions  are  spent  in  providing  ships 
and  rifles,  and  guns  for  wars  that  will  never  take 
place  :  the  smallest  outlay  is  grudged  towards  pro- 
viding the  men  to  man  those  ships  and  fire  those 
guns,  should  the  occasion  ever  arise  for  the  people 
to  defend  their  country. 


Passing  the  Doctor 

When  the  children  of  the  nation  are  assembled 
in  the  public  schools,  the  first  thing  that  would 
suggest  itself  to  a  prudent  public  authority  would 
be  to  take  stock  of  them  and  see  what  they  are 
like.  It  is  the  raw  material  on  which  the  education 
machinery  is  to  work :  it  is  but  business-like  to 
ascertain  its  quality,  and  see  if  it  is  fit  to  stand  the 
operations  to  which  it  is  to  be  subjected.  This 
simple  and  obvious  measure  of  having  the  con- 
dition of  school  children  ascertained  by  means  of 
an  examination  by  competent  medical  authority, 
has  been  recommended  for  years  by  Royal  Com- 
missions, by  public  committees,  by  scientific  bodies, 
and  by  public    meetings  without    number;    it  has 


54       THE    CHILDREN    OF   THE    NATION 

never  yet  been  prescribed  by  the  Board  of  Educa- 
tion, though  many  of  the  advanced  municipalities 
have  spontaneously  taken  it  up.  In  Prussia,  where 
the  Government  is  wise  enough  to  take  care  of 
its  growing  children,  every  boy  and  girl  on  entering 
school  is  examined  medically  like  recruits  for  the 
army.  Height,  weight,  and  other  particulars  are 
recorded ;  any  ailment  or  malformation  is  in- 
vestigated and  prescribed  for.  Children  who 
require  attention  are  marked  down  to  appear 
before  the  doctor  at  his  monthly  visit,  along  with 
any  others  about  whose  health  the  teacher  is  not 
satisfied.  At  each  year  of  school  life  the  medical 
inspection  of  all  the  children  is  repeated.  There 
is  thus  a  record  of  each  child's  condition  and 
progress  from  the  time  it  enters  till  the  time  it 
leaves  school.  Similar  arrangements  are  made  in 
many  other  civilised  States.  In  our  country  we 
have  nothing  so  universal  and  systematic  as  this. 
The  medical  inspection  which  is  beginning  to  be 
spontaneously  carried  out  by  some  municipalities 
varies  too  much  from  place  to  place  to  furnish 
the  ground  for  accurate  information,  although, 
however  unsystematic  it  may  be,  it  is  most 
valuable  for  the  health  of  the  children  themselves. 
Controversies  rage  as  to  the  physical  condition 
of  our  children,  how  many  are  starving,  how  many 
are  diseased,  how  many  are  feeble-minded,  how 
many  are  crippled,  blind,  or  deaf,  which  proper 
medical  inspection  would  at  once  set  at  rest. 


MEDICAL    INSPECTION  55 

Glimpses  of  Deterioration 

That  such  an  inquiry  into  the  condition  of  our 
school  children  would  startle  us  may  be  gathered 
from  the  glimpses  we  have  had  by  partial  inquiries 
in  various  parts  of  the  country.  A  sample  exami- 
nation of  the  Edinburgh  school  children,  good  and 
bad,  was  made  by  Dr.  Mackenzie  for  the  Royal 
Commission  on  Physical  Training  in  Scotland.  He 
found  75  per  cent,  of  the  children  examined  ailing 
in  one  way  or  another,  principally  from  disease  of 
the  nose,  throat,  or  ears.  Dr.  Eichholz,  in  the 
evidence  which  he  gave,  as  the  official  witness  of 
the  Board  of  Education,  before  the  Committee  on 
Physical  Deterioration,  declared  that  at  the  Johanna 
Street  School  in  Lambeth,  which  he  had  examined 
for  the  purpose  of  the  inquiry,  92  per  cent,  of  the 
elder  children,  and  94  per  cent,  of  the  infants, 
were  below  normal  physical  condition,  and  that  in 
some  schools  in  the  North  of  England,  more  than 
60  per  cent,  of  the  scholars  were  in  a  similar 
condition.  A  committee  afterwards  appointed  by 
the  Board  of  Education  to  endeavour  to  shake 
the  testimony  of  their  witness,  entirely  failed  to  do 
so.  In  Dundee  a  medical  examination  of  the 
elementary  scholars  was  carried  out  by  the  Dundee 
Social  Union.  It  disclosed  a  most  unsatisfactory 
condition  of  general  health,  as  appears  from  a  de- 
tailed Report  which  has  been  published.  In  a  school 
called  Blackness,  for  example,  which  is  described  as 
a  large  modern  Board  School  with  a  good  class  of 


56       THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

children,  and  as  the  one  in  which,  on  the  whole,  the 
best  results  were  obtained,  154  boys  were  examined  ; 
of  these  47  were  found  to  be  suffering  from  diseases 
of  the  glands,  5  from  diseases  of  the  bones,  9  from  dis- 
eases of  the  heart,  and  1 7  from  diseases  of  the  lungs. 
Of  the  same  number  92  were  normal  as  regards  eyes ; 
62,  as  regards  ears;  and  84,  as  regards  other  parts  of 
their  bodies.  At  least  one-third  of  all  the  children 
examined  suffered  from  such  defects  of  vision  as  to 
interfere  with  their  power  of  receiving  instruction 
under  ordinary  school  methods.  The  Medical  Officer 
of  Health  for  Dundee  justly  observes  :  "  When  it  is 
borne  in  mind  that  in  a  large  number  of  school 
children  such  defects  are  often  unsuspected  by  the 
most  careful  parent,  and  that  many  of  them  are 
easily  remedied  in  youth,  which,  if  neglected,  may 
seriously  handicap  the  child  throughout  the  whole  of 
his  future  life,  I  think  the  result  of  the  examination 
of  the  Dundee  school  children  materially  adds  to 
the  mass  of  evidence  already  accumulated,  showing 
the  urgent  necessity  for  the  compulsory  medical 
inspection  of  school  children." 

Powers  of  the  Board  of  Education 

The  Board  of  Education  possesses  power  with- 
out further  legislation  to  establish  a  complete  system 
of  medical  inspection  of  schools,  and  it  could  carry 
this  object  out  by  proper  administration  gradually 
and  tentatively.  Its  most  important  financial  func- 
tion is  to  distribute  to  schools  the   millions  voted 


MEDICAL    INSPECTION  57 

annually  by  Parliament  for  grants  to  support 
elementary  education.  These  grants  are  distributed 
upon  conditions  which  are  from  time  to  time  framed 
by  the  Board  of  Education,  and  laid  before  the  two 
Houses  of  Parliament.  It  would  be  a  most  reason- 
able condition  to  attach  to  the  reception  of  a  grant 
that  measures  satisfactory  to  the  Board  of  Education 
should  be  taken  by  the  local  Education  authority 
to  secure  that  children  attending  the  schools  should 
be  in  a  fit  state  to  receive  the  instruction  provided. 
As  entrusted  by  Parliament  with  the  expenditure  of 
this  great  sum,  the  Board  of  Education  would  be 
doing  no  more  than  its  duty  in  seeing  that  it  is  not 
wasted  as  it  is  now  by  being  applied  to  the  instruction 
of  children,  who  not  only  cannot  profit  by  it  but  to 
whom  teaching  adds  an  additional  torture  to  their 
condition  of  bodily  distress.  The  measures  re- 
quired to  be  taken  should  be  at  first  prescribed  in 
general  and  elastic  terms,  and  due  notice  should  be 
given  before  the  new  regulation  was  put  in  force. 
But  the  promulgation  of  it  would  at  once  constrain 
every  local  authority  to  take  the  question  of  medical 
inspection  into  consideration,  and  frame  schemes 
suitable  to  local  circumstances.  The  facts  to  be 
ascertained  and  recorded  should,  for  statistical  pur- 
poses, be  the  same  for  all.  But  the  same  complete- 
ness of  organisation  need  not,  at  all  events  in  the 
first  instance,  be  exacted  from  all  alike.  Cities  like 
Liverpool,  Manchester,  Leeds,  and  Birmingham, 
who  vie  with  each  other  in  keeping  in  the  van  of 
educational    progress,    would    at    once  establish    a 


58       THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

complete  system  of  medical  inspection,  as  good  as 
their  own  municipal  experience  and  the  lessons  to 
be  learnt  from  other  countries  could  create.  Smaller 
boroughs  and  rural  counties  might  at  first  lag  behind. 
Nurses  might  be  substituted  for  doctors  ;  inspection 
might  extend  over  fewer  children  and  be  less 
frequent.  But  all  would  make  progress  of  some 
kind,  and  information,  much  more  reliable  than  any 
accessible  now,  would  be  obtained  as  to  how  many 
ailing  children  were  to  be  found  in  our  schools,  and 
what  was  the  matter  with  them. 


Remedial  Measures 

Things  could  not  long  stop  short,  as  in  most 
places  they  do  now,  at  the  mere  ascertaining  of  the 
truth.  As  soon  as  facts  were  known,  the  demand 
for  remedies  would  become  irresistible.  It  is  a 
lurking  dread  of  the  inevitable  consequence  of  a 
medical  inquiry  that  makes  so  many  good  people 
object  to  its  being  undertaken.  They  can,  with  an 
untroubled  conscience,  shut  their  eyes  and  see 
nothing  ;  but  if  they  once  have  to  open  them  and 
see,  the  memory  of  the  miserable  condition  of  these 
poor  children  will  haunt  them  until  some  remedy  is 
found,  even  it  may  be  at  the  expense  of  the  rate- 
payer. When  the  medical  examination  of  a  school 
was  concluded,  a  certain  portion  of  the  children 
would  be  passed  as  sound  and  healthy  and  requiring 
no  further  attention,  unless  before  the  next  annual 
inspection  came  round  the  teacher,   who  should  be 


MEDICAL    INSPECTION  59 

required  to  exercise  a  vigilant  supervision  over  the 
health  of  the  class,  should  suspect  something  to  be 
amiss  :  the  rest  would  be  reported  to  be  in  need  of 
aid  of  some  kind  or  other.  What  the  ratio  of  the 
former  to  the  latter  would  be  we  do  not  know.  It 
would  vary  from  district  to  district  and  from  school 
to  school ;  the  infirm  would  probably  be  most 
numerous  in  the  poorest  neighbourhoods,  though 
even  in  the  best  schools,  as  the  example  of  Black- 
ness in  Dundee  shows,  much  unsuspected  mischief 
might  be  discovered.  The  doctor's  report  would 
state  what  was  amiss  with  the  child  and  what 
remedies  he  prescribed ;  it  would  remain  on  record 
in  the  school.  The  nature  of  the  child's  ailment 
and  the  remedial  measures  to  be  taken  should  be  at 
once  communicated  to  the  parent,  who  would  in 
most  cases  gladly  co-operate  in  promoting  the  child's 
welfare.  The  primary  duty  is  his  to  obtain  and 
apply  the  remedies  recommended  so  as  to  send 
the  child  to  school  in  a  fit  state  to  receive  instruc- 
tion. The  report  should  not  be  merely  sent 
by  letter,  or  handed  in  at  the  door  as  a  printed 
notice  ;  it  should  be  personally  delivered  to  the 
parent  by  some  one  representing  the  managers  of 
the  school  and  acting  with  the  sanction  and  authority 
of  the  local  Education  committee.  To  many 
schools  there  are  now  attached  boards  of  visitors, 
mostly  women,  volunteers  acting  under  the 
managers,  who  visit  the  homes  of  the  children,  and 
come  into  direct  relations  with  the  parents.  This 
plan  has,  wherever  it  has  been  tried,  proved  effective 


60       THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

in  improving  the  physical  condition  of  the  children, 
and  in  really  enforcing  parental  responsibility  ;  such 
boards  ought  to  be  established  universally  in  con- 
nection with  every  public  elementary  school.  But 
it  is  essential  for  the  success  of  such  a  plan  that  the 
visitor  should  be  competent  to  give  advice,  should 
be  clothed  with  public  authority,  and  should  not  be 
a  mere  prying  intruder  into  a  poor  man's  home. 
The  bearer  of  a  doctors  certificate  that  the  child  is 
ailing  and  requires  certain  remedial  treatment  is  no 
intruder  :  he  enters  the  house  of  right.  If  anybody 
sends  his  child  to  school  unfit  to  receive  instruction, 
he  is  breaking  the  spirit  if  not  the  letter  of  the  law, 
and  the  Education  authority  has  a  right  to  send  its 
agent  to  remonstrate,  to  submit  to  the  parent  the 
doctor's  report  and  to  press  for  the  application  of 
the  remedies  which  he  has  prescribed.  If  no  other 
visitor  was  available,  the  attendance  officer  might 
be  employed.  In  a  great  number  of  cases  of  dirt, 
of  insufficient  clothing,  of  improper  food,  and  of 
less  important  maladies,  the  visit  alone  would  be 
sufficient  to  procure  the  amelioration  desired.  The 
progress  of  the  child  would  be  watched  by  the 
school  teacher,  and  reported  to  the  doctor  on  his 
next  visit.  But  in  other  cases — we  may  hope  only 
a  small  percentage — further  proceedings  would  be 
necessary.  Ignorance  would  by  these  means  be 
eliminated  from  the  causes  of  the  deteriorated 
condition  of  the  child  :  the  prescription  of  the 
doctor  and  the  explanation  of  the  visitor  would 
have  removed  that  excuse.     The  cause  would  now 


MEDICAL    INSPECTION  61 

be  either  wilful  neglect  or  incapacity  from  poverty 
to  provide  the  treatment  required.  If  the  doctor 
had  ordered  spectacles,  or  quinine,  or  cod  liver  oil, 
the  parent  might  be  too  poor  to  provide  such 
medical  luxuries.  What  in  such  a  case  is  to  be 
done  ?  The  child,  it  must  be  remembered,  has  a 
legal  right  to  have  all  things  necessary  to  its  health, 
in  default  of  their  being  provided  for  it  by  its 
parent,  furnished  at  the  public  expense ;  and  even 
if  it  had  no  such  legal  right,  it  would  be  generally 
good  economy  for  the  State  to  provide  such  neces- 
saries now,  in  order  to  save  greater  expenditure 
hereafter.  Under  the  existing  law  the  Education 
authority  has  no  power  given  to  it  in  the  Education 
Acts  to  provide  either  medicine  or  surgical  appli- 
ances for  poor  children,  who  stand  in  need  of  them. 
It  is  doubtful  whether  such  expenditure  would  come 
within  the  functions  of  the  municipal  council  as  the 
Health  authority.  The  power  is  now  vested  in  the 
Poor  Law  Guardians.  The  latter  are  elected  by 
the  same  constituency  as  the  municipality ;  but 
personally  they  generally  belong  to  a  somewhat 
different  class,  and  are  influenced  by  different 
maxims  and  principles.  Until  the  power  of  the 
Education  authority  is  so  extended  as  to  comprehend 
all  that  is  necessary  for  the  healthy  education  of  a 
child  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word,  its  capacity  for 
bringing  up  children  will  remain  seriously  crippled, 
and  will  continue  to  be  dependent  on  Poor  Law 
Guardians.  The  Education  authority  will  have  to 
make  application  to  them  for  much  that  is  necessary. 


62   THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  NATION 

The  deterrents  and  obstacles  which  they  throw  in 
the  way  of  any  such  application  would  have  to  be 
faced.  The  parent,  whose  primary  duty  it  is  to 
demand  what  is  necessary  for  his  child,  might 
succeed  in  overcoming  obstacles  when  backed  up 
by  the  support  of  the  official  visitor.  If  the 
Guardians  ignore  the  children's  rights,  or  are 
oppressive  to  the  parents  who  claim  them,  the  latter 
have  the  remedy  in  their  own  hands.  Guardians 
are  elected  by  the  suffrages  of  all  the  householders 
of  the  district,  male  and  female,  and  if  these  choose 
to  return  a  body  which  oppresses  the  poor  and  denies 
the  rights  of  the  helpless,  they  have  only  themselves 
to  blame. 


Official  Visitors  of  School  Children  s  Homes 

The  medical  inspection  of  schools,  so  far  as  it 
was  designed  not  merely  for  statistical  purposes  but 
to  effect  a  real  improvement  in  the  health  of  the 
scholars,  would  depend  greatly  on  the  efficiency  of 
the  visitors  of  the  children's  homes.  There  is  no 
legal  provision  for  constraining  any  one  to  undertake 
and  perform  the  duty  of  visiting  the  houses  of  the 
poor,  as  guardians  and  protectors  of  the  little  ones. 
In  Prussia  it  is  otherwise.  Every  citizen  can  be 
called  upon  by  his  municipality  to  perform  service 
of  this  kind,  and  is  liable  to  a  fine  if  he  refuses  or 
neglects  to  do  so,  just  as  in  this  country  a  citizen  is 
liable  to  a  fine  if  he  refuses  the  office  of  mayor. 
The  effect  of  this  is  that  a  great  deal  more  unpaid 


MEDICAL    INSPECTION  63 

municipal  work  of  this  kind  is  performed  in  Prussia 
than  in  Great  Britain  ;  but  it  is  done  almost  entirely 
by  men.  Our  own  voluntary  system  has  the  great 
advantage  of  enlisting  in  the  work  the  services  of 
women,  which  in  everything  relating  to  the  bringing 
up  of  little  children  is  naturally  vastly  superior  to 
that  of  men.  Had  the  counsels  of  women  been 
more  sought  after  and  attended  to,  many  of  the 
lamentable  blunders  that  men  have  made  in  the 
treatment  of  children  would  have  been  avoided. 
But  the  experience  of  parish  work,  of  charitable 
societies,  and  of  the  administration  of  the  Poor  Law 
itself,  shows  that  an  abundance  of  volunteer  workers, 
both  men  and  women,  are  to  be  had  for  the  service 
of  the  poor.  There  is  no  reason  to  imagine  that 
they  would  be  less  disposed  to  undertake  such  work, 
if  they  had  to  act  under  public  control  and  were 
clothed  with  public  authority.  Any  local  authority 
could  now,  without  any  legal  compulsion,  organise  a 
body  of  volunteer  visitors  quite  as  competent  to 
perform  the  duties  above  described  as  any  body 
constituted  under  the  laws  of  Prussia. 


Manchester  Ladies   Health  Society 

In  Manchester  there  has  existed  for  many  years 
a  society  called  "The  Ladies'  Public  Health 
Society."  It  operates  in  the  belt  of  poor  dwellings, 
where  the  poorest  of  the  working  people  live, 
which  intervenes  between  the  business  centre  of 
Manchester  and  the  suburbs.    This  girdle  of  poverty 


64       THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

which  surrounds  the  wealth  of  Central  Manchester 
is  roughly  divided  into  districts,  to  each  of  which 
there  is  a  lady  superintendent  and  a  health  visitor ; 
the  latter  lives  in  the  district,  receives  a  salary,  and 
devotes  her  whole  time  to  the  work.  The  City 
Council  pay  half  the  salary  of  the  visitors,  on  con- 
dition that  they  receive  assistance  from  all  of  them. 
The  ladies  and  the  visitors  under  them  work  in 
conjunction  with  the  City  Council  and  under  the 
direction  of  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health.  The 
houses  in  which  there  are  babies  receive  special 
attention,  with  the  view  of  informing  mothers  as  to 
the  best  methods  of  bringing  up  young  children. 
These  health  visitors  report  to  the  City  Council 
all  sanitary  defects,  cases  of  overcrowding,  stopped 
drains,  and  structural  defects.  When  the  society 
began  its  operation  there  were  in  Ancoats  300  back- 
to-back  houses,  the  majority  of  which  had  no 
ordinary  sanitary  conveniences  ;  many  had  no  tap 
or  anything  of  the  kind.  At  the  time  of  the  sitting 
of  the  Committee  on  Physical  Deterioration  there 
were  not  more  than  twenty  of  such  back-to-back 
houses  left.  The  lady  superintendent  makes  house- 
to-house  visitations  in  her  district.  Mother's  meet- 
ings are  organised,  and  the  women  who  attend  them 
become  apostles  of  health  among  their  neighbours 
and  popularise  notions  of  a  higher  standard  of 
domesticity.  The  advice  given  is  said  to  be 
accepted  with  gladness  by  the  mothers,  especially 
by  the  younger  ones. 


MEDICAL    INSPECTION  65 

Visiting  Committees  of  the  London  School  Board 

The    London  School  Board  endeavoured  to  es- 
tablish visiting  committees  in  connection  with  the 
London  Board  Schools,  chiefly  for  the  purpose  of 
visiting  the  homes  of  underfed  children,  but  also 
for  the  purpose  of  generally  improving  the  physical 
condition  of  school  children.     The  success  of  these 
committees  was  not  indeed  universal,  but  wherever 
the   system   was   efficiently  carried  out  the  results 
were  so  admirable  as  to  encourage  a  more  complete 
and    effective    organisation    of  the   plan.     At   the 
Tower  Street  School,  Seven  Dials,  for  example,  a 
school  relief  committee  has  been  in  existence  since 
January,  1899,  consisting  of  the  three  head  teachers 
and  two  lady  managers.    The  names  of  all  children 
who  ask  for  food  tickets,  also  of  all  children  who 
seem  sick  or  sorry  are  given  to  the  visiting  managers 
by  the   head  teachers  ;  the  homes  are  visited  and 
the    mothers    interviewed.      The    visits    and    the 
interest  taken  in  the  children  appear  to  produce  no 
injurious  effect  on  the  careless  mothers ;  they  even 
induce  them  to  keep  the  children  clean.    The  visitor 
sees  under  what  conditions  the  children  are  living, 
whether  the  windows  open,  whether  the  children  are 
being  washed,  whether  they  are  suffering  from  want 
of    air  and   want  of    sleep.      In   some   cases   the 
mothers  are  found  to  be  widows  or  deserted  wives 
in  receipt  of  the  pittance  of  outdoor  relief  given  by 
Poor  Law  Guardians,  just  enough  to  prevent  her 
from  going  into   the   workhouse   and   making   the 


66       THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

children  chargeable  to  the  Union.  The  visitor  may 
in  such  cases  help  the  widow  to  appeal  for  justice ; 
there  would  be  a  much  better  chance  if  the  appeal 
could  be  made  to  an  Education  rather  than  a  Poor 
Law  authority.  The  local  Sanitary  authority  can  be 
called  in,  verminous  rooms  can  be  cleansed,  drains 
and  dustbins  can  be  attended  to.  A  joint  committee, 
appointed  by  the  London  County  Council,  reported, 
in  1905,  that  the  duty  of  managers  in  respect  of 
visiting  the  homes  of  the  children  and  procuring 
information  regarding  their  home  conditions,  has 
been  in  the  majority  of  cases  imperfectly  fulfilled. 
The  Council,  however,  seems  to  have  in  view  relief 
rather  than  health  committees  as  in  Manchester ; 
they  advise  that  a  local  organisation  is  required 
only  in  schools  likely  to  contain  necessitous  children  ; 
and  its  function  is  to  be  the  distribution  of  food 
tickets  and  boots,  rather  than  the  establishment  of 
healthy  conditions  in  the  homes  of  the  children. 


CHAPTER   V 


UNDERFED     CHILDREN 


Revelation    apprehended  from    Medical  Inspection 

BEFORE  any  general  and  systematic  inspection 
of  school  children  takes  place  there  is  one 
thing  for  which  we  must  prepare  ourselves  in 
advance — that  such  an  examination  would  disclose 
an  appalling  number  of  children  who  chronically 
suffer  from  lack  of  nourishment  to  an  extent  that 
unfits  them  for  school  work.  What  the  exact 
percentage  of  such  children  may  be  as  compared 
with  the  whole  child  population  we  have  at  present 
no  means  of  knowing  :  we  can  only  guess.  It  is  the 
dread  of  having  conjecture  turned  into  certainty 
that  induces  many  persons  to  resist  medical  inquiry. 
Whether  it  is  more  due  to  improper  than  to  insuffi- 
cient food  we  cannot  tell.  Some  persons  take 
great  pains  to  prove  that  it  is  with  improper  rather 
than  insufficient  food  that  we  have  to  deal.  To  the 
child  who  thrives,  not  on  what  it  eats  but  on  what 
it  digests,   it  makes    no   difference.     This   chronic 

malnutrition  of  great  masses  of  children,  is  by  far 

67 


68       THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

the  most  serious  and  most  urgent  matter  in  con- 
nection with  public  health  with  which  the  community 
at  the  present  moment  has  to  deal.  Dr.  Eichholz 
says  :  "  I  hold  a  very  firm  opinion,  which  is 
shared  by  medical  men,  members  of  education 
committees,  managers,  teachers,  and  others  con- 
versant with  the  condition  of  school  children,  that 
food  is  at  the  base  of  all  the  evils  of  child 
degeneracy  ;  that  is  to  say,  if  we  can  take  steps  to 
ensure  the  proper  adequate  feeding  of  the  children, 
the  evil  will  rapidly  cease.  Other  circumstances 
noted  in  connection  with  degeneracy  are  bad 
clothing,  bad  boots,  exposure,  want  of  fresh  air, 
overcrowding,  filth,  late  hours,  overstrain  at  work, 
and,  to  a  less  extent,  the  smoking  by  boys.  But  all 
these  causes   pale  beside  the  stress  laid  on  food." 

Number  of  ill-nourished  Children 

There  would  be  no  advantage  in  discussing  here 
the  exact  percentage  of  underfed  children.  It 
corresponds  probably  with  the  proportion  of 
families  who  are  below  what  is  called  the  "poverty 
line,"  that  is  to  say,  whose  earnings  devoted  to  the 
support  of  their  families  are  insufficient  to  maintain 
those  families  in  a  position  of  reasonable  health 
and  comfort.  But  this  poverty  line  is  not  a  fixed 
standard  which  can  be  scientifically  ascertained.  It 
is  dependent  on  opinion  as  well  as  fact.  Sir  Charles 
Booth  for  London,  and  Mr.  Rowntree  for  York, 
estimate  a  third  of  the  population  as  below  what 


UNDERFED    CHILDREN  69 

they  regard  as  the  poverty  line.  Dr.  Mackenzie  in 
Edinburgh  reported  more  than  one-third  of  the 
children  examined,  to  be  what  he  considered  ill- 
nourished.  But  the  correspondence  between  under- 
feeding and  poverty  is  not  exact.  In  many  of  our 
great  English  cities  the  poorest  classes  of  the 
population  consist  of  Jews,  many  of  them  recent 
immigrants  from  Russia  and  Poland,  and  Irish, 
refugees  from  the  poverty  of  their  own  country. 
Yet  these  do  not  send  their  children  to  school 
underfed.  Dr.  Hall,  of  Leeds,  where  there  is  a 
large  Jewish  population  engaged  in  the  ready-made 
clothing  trade,  has  made  a  study  of  this  matter,  and 
has  published  statistics  showing  the  superior  height 
and  weight  of  Jewish  boys  and  girls  as  compared 
with  Gentiles.  He  took  me,  in  1904,  to  pay  surprise 
visits  to  two  Board  Schools  in  the  poorest  quarters 
of  Leeds,  one  frequented  by  Jews,  the  other  by 
Gentiles.  The  two  schools  presented  the  most 
marked  contrast  in  healthy  appearance,  cleanliness, 
neatness  of  clothes,  and  general  brightness,  though 
Dr.  Hall  declared  that  the  parents  of  the  two  sets 
of  children  were  equally  poor  and  their  homes 
equally  dirty  and  overcrowded.  On  the  steps  of 
the  Gentile  school  was  a  little  girl  of  ten  partaking 
of  a  cup  of  cocoa,  administered  to  her  by  a  poor 
ragged  woman.  It  turned  out  on  inquiry  to  be  a 
Jewish  child,  who  had  been  out  of  sorts  at  break- 
fast, and  eaten  nothing ;  its  mother  had  brought  up 
the  cup  of  cocoa  to  the  school,  fearing  her  child 
might   be  faint  and  hungry,   and    unfit   to  do  her 


70       THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

lessons.  Dr.  Eichholz  says  that  both  Jews  and 
Irish  "  make  a  great  point  of  caring  for  their  young 
children  " — it  is,  in  fact,  a  matter  of  religious  obliga- 
tion with  both — "  with  the  result  that  these  two 
types  very  usually  stand  apart  in  the  poorer  neigh- 
bourhoods from  the  general  degeneracy." 

Children  s  Rights 

Whether  the  default  of  parents  arises  from 
negligence,  ignorance,  or  poverty,  the  children  have 
in  this  country  an  indefeasible  right  to  be  fed,  and 
if  the  parent  fails,  from  any  cause  whatever,  the 
State  is  under  a  legal  obligation  to  step  in.  If 
the  laws  were  properly  administered,  there  ought 
to  be  no  such  thing  as  a  starving  child  in  the 
land,  much  less  under  the  eyes  of  public  officials 
in  the  public  schools.  The  only  excuse  for  the 
existence  of  such  a  reproach  to  our  performance  of 
public  duty  would  be  that  the  child  had  escaped 
notice,  and  in  the  case  of  children  who  come  under 
the  daily  observation  of  public  officers,  in  the  form 
of  school  teachers,  such  an  excuse  would  be 
inadmissible.  In  the  case  of  the  Attorney-General 
v.  the  Guardians  of  the  Poor  of  Merthyr  Tydfil, 
the  question  was  discussed  and  the  law  distinctly 
laid  down  by  the  Court  of  Appeal.  In  that  case 
the  Guardians  had  given  outdoor  relief  to  miners 
on  strike,  their  wives  and  children,  and  the  ques- 
tion was  whether  they  were  legally  entitled  to  this 
relief.     It  was  shown  that  the  miners  could,  if  they 


UNDERFED    CHILDREN  71 

would,  obtain  work  and  wages ;  and  it  was  held 
that  this  fact  disentitled  them  to  receive  relief, 
however  laudable  their  object  might  be  in  refusing 
the  work  and  wages  offered  :  but  with  the  women 
and  children  the  case  was  different ;  they  were,  it 
destitute,  entitled  to  immediate  relief,  from  whatever 
cause  and  whatever  default  their  destitution  had 
arisen.  The  President  of  the  Local  Government 
Board  of  the  late  Government  declared  that  "  the 
obligation  has  always  rested  on  the  Guardians  to 
relieve  children  who  were  destitute  for  want  of 
food,  even  though  that  destitution  might  arise 
solely  from  the  neglect  of  the  parent.  But  it  was 
true  that  in  consequence  of  administrative  diffi- 
culties that  was  rarely  and  perhaps  never  done." 
In  plain  words,  children  are  systematically  robbed 
of  their  rights,  because  our  administration  of 
government  is  badly  organised. 

Parent  Reformation 

There  is  a  strange  idea  rooted  in  the  minds  of  a 
great  number  of  people,  otherwise  of  a  just  and 
generous  disposition,  that  the  rights  of  children 
may  be  ignored,  and  that  they  may  properly  be 
used  as  an  instrument  for  compelling  parents  to 
fufil  their  moral  obligation  ;  children  should  be  left 
to  starve  in  order  to  coerce  their  parents  into  feed- 
ing them.  Nothing  could  be  more  foolish  and 
unwise  than  such  a  proceeding.  In  the  first  place, 
it  is  ineffective.     Parents  who  spend  in  drink  the 


72       THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

money  that  should  buy  their  children's  food  are 
past  being  recalled  to  a  sense  of  their  duty  by  the 
sight  of  their  children's  sufferings.  On  this  point 
Dr.  Airy,  H.M.  Inspector  in  Birmingham,  says  : 
"  I  have  looked  into  the  matter  very  carefully,  of  a 
drunken  parent  who  neglects  his  children,  and  he 
will  not  drink  a  pint  less  or  more  for  anything  that 
we  do  for  his  child  :  it  will  not  make  the  slightest 
difference."  It  is  besides  quite  certain  that  public 
charity  will  step  in  in  some  form  or  other,  to  relieve 
the  wants  of  the  child.  The  drunken  parent  knows 
this,  and  reckons  upon  it  as  an  excuse  for  his 
inhumanity.  In  the  next  place,  a  child  is  too 
valuable  a  "  national  asset "  to  be  turned  into  an 
instrument  for  improving  the  general  morality  of 
the  community  ;  its  welfare  and  healthy  develop- 
ment is  of  far  more  importance  to  the  State  than 
the  moral  reformation  of  a  worthless  parent.  To. 
risk  the  damage  of  the  child  for  the  remote  possi- 
bility of  mending  the  parent  is  the  height  of  bad 
economy  :  if  you  must  choose  between  the  two, 
save  the  child  and  let  the  parent  go.  The  duty 
and  interest  of  the  community  is  to  feed  the  child 
first,  and  afterwards  to  take  such  measures  as  it 
can  to  ensure  for  the  future  the  due  performance 
by  the  parent  of  his  obligations.  For  this  purpose 
the  existing  administration  is  at  present  so  defective 
that,  as  the  President  of  the  Local  Government 
Board  declares,  it  does  not  act  at  all,  and  it  is 
difficult  to  amend  it  without  an  alteration  of  the 
law.     To  pass  amending  Acts  of  Parliament,  even 


UNDERFED    CHILDREN  73 

with  the  help  of  a  sympathetic  Government,  is  a 
long  process,  and  many  generations  of  school 
children  may  perish  of  hunger  before  the  reform 
which  is  to  bring  about  the  feeding  of  the  hungry 
child  is  accomplished. 

Free  Feeding 

Perplexed  by  these  difficulties,  some  Associations 
which  have  taken  a  keen  interest  in  the  condition 
of  starving  school  children,  such  as  the  Social 
Democratic  Federation,  have  proposed  to  cut  the 
Gordian  knot  by  feeding  all  school  children  at  the 
public  expense.  They  propose  to  do  this  not  out 
of  the  rates,  which  are  paid  in  the  long  run  by 
owners  of  property,  but  out  of  the  taxes,  of  which 
more  than  a  fair  share  is  paid  by  the  poor.  The 
effect  of  such  a  plan  would  be  to  relieve  the  parents 
of  children  from  legal  obligations  to  which  they  are 
now  subject,  and  impose  these  upon  the  general 
body  of  the  people.  The  cost  of  giving  one  good 
meal,  sufficient  to  allay  hunger,  to  a  child  for 
the  five  days  in  the  week  on  which  it  attends 
school,  would  be  5d.  ;  and  would  amount  in  the 
year  to  about  16s.  8d.  Dr.  Airy,  who  was  for 
twenty  years  chairman  of  a  committee  in  Birming- 
ham for  providing  meals  for  necessitous  school 
children,  testifies  that  a  dinner  consisting  of  a  bowl 
of  lentil  soup,  and  a  large  slab  of  bread  and  jam, 
can  be  given  for  a  halfpenny.  Unlike  Oliver 
Twist,  they  may  ask  for  more  and  get  it.  The 
amount    of    a   halfpenny    each    provides    all    the 

Oc  THF 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


74       THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

expense,  one-third  of  which  consists  of  salaries  to 
managers.  In  other  places,  where  a  more  generous 
diet  is  given,  the  cost  has  proved  to  be  a  penny  or 
a  little  less.  Evidence  was  given  before  a  com- 
mittee of  the  Board  of  Education,  of  an  enterprising 
old  lady,  who  earned  her  living  in  Liverpool  by 
giving  penny  dinners  to  all  children  who  came, 
fifty  or  sixty  a  day.  It  was  not  a  charity,  but 
a  commercial  undertaking.  The  child  brought 
its  penny,  ate  its  dinner,  and  went  away  again. 
No  questions  were  asked.  She  gave  a  very 
good  meal  of  meat  and  vegetables,  and  made  a 
profit  on  which  she  lived.  The  average  number 
of  children  attending  the  public  elementary  schools 
in  England  and  Wales  is  in  round  numbers 
6,000,000,  so  that  the  cost  to  the  Exchequer  of 
providing  one  meal  of  the  Liverpool  lady's  menu, 
or  two  of  Dr.  Airy's,  on  each  day  that  the 
school  was  open,  would  come  to  ,£5,000,000  per 
annum.  This  would  not,  however,  solve  the  problem 
of  underfed  children.  The  one  meal  a  day  for  five 
days  only  in  the  week  is  not  sufficient  to  build  up 
a  child's  constitution :  it  is  at  best  a  stop-gap,  and 
prevents  further  degeneracy.  To  turn  the  ill- 
nourished  slum  child  into  a  strong,  healthy  boy  or 
girl  a  much  more  generous  diet,  with  plenty  of  oil 
and  fat,  is  requisite.  Dr.  Hall,  of  Leeds,  who  has 
had  a  large  experience  in  the  feeding  of  destitute 
children,  thinks  the  cost  would  be  twopence  a  day. 
He  has  during  this  year  fed  children  at  this  price 
for  the  Leeds  City  Council,  and  says  that  nourish- 


UNDERFED    CHILDREN  75 

ment  is  ample  and  the  cost  more  than  covered. 
Dr.  Hall's  estimate  is  borne  out  by  the  experience  of 
municipal  bodies  who  feed  school  children  in  the 
cities  of  Europe.  At  the  rate  of  twopence  a  day 
the  cost  of  feeding  6,000,000  children  on  all  week- 
days, leaving  their  parents  to  find  the  food  on 
Sundays,  would  amount  to  ,£15,650,000.  It  is 
probable  that  if  a  public  gratuitous  meal  was  offered 
not  more  than  half  the  school  children  would  at  first 
partake  of  it.  If  this  were  so,  the  cost  would  be 
as  follows  : — 

For  a  id.  meal  on  all  school-days     ,£1,250,000 

For  a  id.  meal  on  all  school-days     ,£2,500,000 

For  a  generous  and  sufficient  diet 

on  all  school-days    ...         ...     ,£5,000,000 

For  a  generous  and  sufficient  diet 
all   the    year   round    except 

Sundays       £7,825,000 

Of  course  the  time  would  come  when  all  children 
attending  the  public  elementary  schools  would  par- 
take of  the  gratuitous  public  meal,  and  then  these 
sums  would  be  doubled. 

Home  Influence 

The  cost  ought  not  to  stand  in  the  way  of  the 
adoption  of  a  plan  of  this  kind.  But  there  are 
other  and  graver  objections.  It  would  certainly 
undermine  parental  responsibility,  and  would  take 
the  children  still  more  than  now  out  of  the  hands 
of  their  parents,  and  make  them  still  more  than 
now  children  of  the  State.     So  far  as  the  parents 


76       THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

were  relieved  of  the  cost  of  feeding  their  children, 
it  would  be  a  boon  to  those  now  on  the  edge  of  the 
poverty  line  ;  it  would  lift  some  now  under  the  line 
above  it.  But  it  would  tend,  as  free  education  has 
tended,  to  lessen  parental  interest  and  parental 
co-operation  in  the  bringing  up  of  children.  If 
attention  is  paid  only  to  the  third  of  the  child 
population  which  is  now  destitute  and  neglected, 
this  might  be  no  great  loss  ;  but  it  is  probable  that 
nearly  all  parents  who  are  not  stupefied  by  the 
grinding  influence  of  poverty,  do  still  love  and  care 
for  their  little  ones,  and,  even  with  the  few  who  do 
not,  neglect  is  rather  the  result  of  ignorance  than  of 
wickedness.  The  mother  who  loves  her  child  is 
by  far  the  best  instrument  the  State  can  employ 
in  providing  for  its  real  education ;  better  than 
teachers,  or  school  managers,  or  medical  inspectors, 
or  attendance  officers ;  and  it  is  sound  economy  to 
educate  and  improve  the  mothers,  to  draw  forth  the 
natural  love  of  offspring  implanted  in  them,  and  so 
to  make  their  influence  effective  in  the  bringing  up 
of  children  to  be  healthy  and  useful  citizens.  It  is 
reckless  extravagance  to  cast  away  all  this  natural 
force  which  costs  the  State  nothing,  and  gives 
work  and  interest  and  pleasure  in  life  to  the 
mothers  themselves,  and  trust  the  whole  of  educa- 
tion to  the  incompetent  hands  of  State  officials. 
Hitherto,  so  far  as  experience  teaches  us,  the  State 
has  proved  itself  a  bad  stepmother.  It  has  already 
in  its  workhouses,  its  district  schools,  its  cottage 
homes,  and  its  industrial  and  reformatory  schools, 


UNDERFED    CHILDREN  77 

an  army  of  children  whose  condition  and  treatment 
will  be  considered  in  a  subsequent  chapter.  It  is 
enough  to  observe  here  that,  as  compared  with  the 
work  of  a  private  person  like  Dr.  Barnado,  its 
education  of  the  children  in  its  charge  has  proved  a 
lamentable  failure,  and  that  the  chief  cause  of  this 
failure  is  the  absence,  perhaps  unavoidable,  from 
State  institutions  of  that  special  individual  love  for 
each  child  which  Nature  implants  in  a  mother. 
This  is  the  most  powerful  and  essential  influence 
that  can  be  brought  to  bear  upon  a  child,  and 
free  education  and  free  feeding  tend  to  diminish, 
if  not  to  obliterate  it. 

Proper  Diet 

Another  objection  to  free  feeding  is  that  it  must 
of  necessity  be  somewhat  stinted  and  parsimonious 
and  cannot  readily  be  varied  to  suit  the  needs  of 
each  child.  Medical  testimony  is  agreed  in  assert- 
ing that  most  of  the  mischief  which  results  from 
starvation  and  neglect  in  the  first  years  of  life  is 
curable  during  school  age.  Proper  nourishment 
and  proper  conditions  of  life  will  at  that  age  retrieve 
almost  any  lapse  from  normal  health.  No  sadder 
or  more  pregnant  testimony  was  given  to  the  Com- 
mittee on  Physical  Deterioration  than  that  of  Dr. 
Collie,  Medical  Inspector  of  the  London  School 
Board,  about  feeble-minded  children.  "  Mental 
disability  is  not  only  preventable,  but  in  many  cases 
curable.  In  a  large  number  of  instances,  after  the 
careful  individual  attention  and  midday   dinner  of 


78       THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

the  special  schools,  they  are  returned  after  from 
sixteen  to  eighteen  months  to  the  elementary 
schools  with  a  new  lease  of  mental  vigour.  These 
children  are  functionally  mentally  defective.  Their 
brains  are  starved  and  naturally  fail  to  react  to  the 
ordinary  methods  of  elementary  teaching.  In  the 
absence  of  proper  provision  for  feeding  ill-nourished 
children,  these  special  schools  in  London  are  fulfill- 
ing a  very  useful  function.  .  .  .  Many  of  these 
children  are  apparently  only  dull  and  backward,  but 
they  are  really  functionally  defective.  And  in  a 
certain  proportion  of  the  cases  it  is  the  result  of 
semi-starvation."  Asked  whether  under  better 
conditions  of  feeding  the  brain  recovered,  he  replied, 
"  Yes  ;  after  sixteen  or  eighteen  months  they  get  a 
fresh  start  with  feeding." 

But  medical  testimony  also  asserts  that  to  call 
forth  the  healing  force  of  nature  a  generous  diet 
suitable  to  the  special  case  of  each  neglected  child 
is  requisite.  A  bowl  of  lentil  soup  and  a  slab  of 
bread  and  jam  will  not  in  all  cases  produce  the 
result  desired.  "The  present  method  of  feeding  in 
London,"  says  Dr.  Eichholz,  "is  entirely  of  the 
nature  of  a  temporary  stop-gap.  There  is  but  little 
concentrated  effort  at  building  up  enfeebled  consti- 
tutions, school-feeding  doing  little  beyond  arresting 
further  degeneracy."  "  It  is  probable  that  free 
meals  at  present  do  little  beyond  arresting  further 
degeneracy,  without  doing  much  in  the  way  of 
building  up." 


UNDERFED    CHILDREN  79 

Delay  Dangerous 

A  further  objection  to  relying  on  free  feeding  by 
the  State  as  the  best  mode  of  meeting  the  emer- 
gency of  the  present  moment  is  the  long  delay  that 
must  occur.  It  is  an  immediate  remedy  that  is 
required  ;  delay  is  dangerous.  Free  feeding  involves 
a  very  fundamental  change  in  the  law  and  the 
shifting  of  a  considerable  financial  burden,  if  the 
cost  is  to  be  defrayed  out  of  rates,  from  the 
shoulders  of  the  poor  to  those  of  the  rich.  Every- 
body with  any  experience  of  British  domestic 
politics  knows  how  long  a  controversy  of  this  sort 
is  likely  to  last,  how  many  vicissitudes,  how  many 
battles  won  and  lost  there  will  be  before  the  desired 
consummation  is  reached.  In  the  meantime  even 
those  who  advocate  free  feeding  will  agree  that  the 
rights  of  children  under  the  existing  law  should  be 
enforced,  that  the  unjust  administration  of  the  law, 
admitted  by  the  President  of  the  Local  Government 
Board,  should  be  put  an  end  to,  and  that  adequate 
measures  should  be  at  once  taken  to  secure  (i)  that 
school  children  shall  be  properly  fed  by  those  parents 
who  have  the  means  of  feeding  them  ;  (2)  that  the 
public  authority  should  perform  its  duty  in  making 
provision  for  the  feeding  of  those  children  whose 
parents  do  not  or  cannot  perform  their  legal  obliga- 
tion. 

School  Meals 

The  efforts  of  public  authority  should,  therefore, 
at  first  be  limited  to  making  provision  for  feeding 


80        THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

those  children  who  are  now  attending  school  half- 
starved,  and  to  taking  measures  for  the  reduction 
of  their  number,  whatever  it  may  prove  to  be,  by 
visitation  of  the  children's  homes  and  prosecution 
of  some  of  the  worst  offenders  as  an  example  to  the 
rest.  The  best  method  of  attaining  such  a  result 
would  be  the  institution,  wherever  the  local  educa- 
tion authority  found  it  necessary,  of  school  meals, 
such  as  are  now  provided  in  a  great  many  of  the 
cities  of  Europe.  In  many  schools,  both  in  town 
and  country,  there  is  no  necessity  for  anything  of 
the  kind.  The  children  are  well  fed  ;  the  parents 
wish  to  give  them  their  breakfasts  and  dinners  at 
home ;  the  starving  child  is  a  rare  exception,  and 
can  easily  be  dealt  with  by  exceptional  treatment. 
While  medical  inspection  is  urgently  demanded  in 
all  schools  because  mischief  may  exist  unsuspected 
by  the  most  careful  parent,  school  feeding  is  only 
wanted  in  a  certain  section — how  large  or  small 
there  is  no  way  of  at  present  judging — situated 
mostly  in  the  poorer  parts  of  our  cities.  There 
may  be  places  in  which  the  establishment  of  school 
meals  would  be  a  great  boon  to  workers  who  are 
comparatively  well  off,  and  they  would  gladly  pay 
the  cost.  It  depends  upon  the  conditions  of  work 
in  the  district.  In  Birmingham  and  other  places 
the  establishment  of  self-supporting  meals  for 
children  has  been  tried  with  a  conspicuous  lack  of 
success.  One  reason  for  this  appears  to  be  that 
children  for  whom  it  is  known  that  the  parents 
have  paid  and  those  for  whom  it  is  known  that  the 


UNDERFED    CHILDREN  81 

parents  have  not  paid  are  mixed  up  together,  and 
the  former  are  very  soon  withdrawn,  either  because 
parents  do  not  wish  their  children  to  be  confounded 
with  the  indigent  class  or  because  they  feel  it  to  be 
a  sort  of  injustice  that  they  should  be  made  to  pay 
for  that  which  others  get  for  nothing.  In  the 
"cantines  scolaires,"  in  Paris,  poor  children  who  pay 
and  who  do  not  pay  dine  side  by  side.  But  the 
distribution  of  tickets  is  so  conducted  as  to  preclude 
the  possibility  of  knowing  which  of  the  children 
receive  them  gratuitously.  Canteens  are  established 
in  every  one  of  the  Arrondissements  except  the 
VIII th,  in  which  there  is  no  indigent  population. 
Free  meals  are  given  to  children  known  to  be  in 
want,  whether  their  parents  are  on  the  books  of  the 
Bureau  de  Bienfaisance  or  not.  No  meal  is  served 
except  on  presentation  of  a  ticket ;  the  ticket  which 
is  given  is  of  exactly  the  same  pattern  as  that  which 
is  bought.  The  children  receive  a  wholesome  hot 
dinner  at  a  cost  usually  less  than  fifteen  centimes. 
The  working  of  the  canteens  is  left  entirely  to 
the  Mayor  and  School  Fund  Committees.  About 
two-thirds  of  the  expenses  are  provided  by  the 
Municipality  of  Paris  and  one-third  by  the  sale  of 
tickets  and  contributions,  generally  derived  from 
endowments  by  the  School  Fund  Committees.  In 
1904  10,660,000  meals  were  given  at  a  cost  of 
1,461,000  francs.  About  one-fourth  of  the  cost — 
359»ooo  francs — was  defrayed  by  the  sale  of  tickets. 
In  the  case  of  dinners  provided  in  secondary 
schools,  where   all  pay,   no  such   difficulty   arises. 


82       THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

In  the  Manchester  Municipal  Secondary  School 
efforts  have  been  made  with  complete  success  to 
provide  a  wholesome  dinner  for  the  higher  class 
of  children  who  attend  it.  Different  kinds  of  dinner 
can  be  obtained  at  the  school  at  prices  varying 
from  a  penny  to  sixpence.  For  the  latter  sum 
meat,  two  vegetables,  and  bread,  with  a  clean  cloth 
and  a  glass  of  water,  is  served.  Formerly  the 
children  were  often  sent  with  money  for  their 
dinners,  which  they  spent  at  the  pastrycook's  on 
cakes  and  sweets.  The  dining-room  is  well  fre- 
quented and  more  than  self-supporting.  This  last 
condition  is  essential,  as  no  money  can  be  taken 
from  the  rates  for  such  a  purpose.  Similar  dinners 
are  organised  by  the  Education  authority  in  many 
other  towns.  The  children  who  attend  the  public 
elementary  schools  have  in  many  places,  especially 
in  those  where  mothers  go  to  work  in  factories,  the 
same  necessity  for  a  cheap  and  wholesome  meal, 
for  which  their  parents  are  able  and  willing  to  pay. 
But  this  requires  organisation,  and  the  parents  have 
neither  the  knowledge  nor  the  leisure  to  organise 
for  themselves.  Mr.  Priestman,  the  chairman  of  a 
committee  at  Bradford  for  feeding  children  and  a 
member  of  the  City  Council,  says  :  "  The  ideal 
thing  would,  in  our  opinion,  be  to  have  half-a-dozen 
dining-rooms  with  kitchens  attached  in  half-a-dozen 
centres  in  the  city,  where  the  children  could  be  fed 
and  where  we  could  give  a  good  substantial  meal 
of  soup  and  bread,  or  rice  pudding,  or  both,  and 
charge  the  parents  a  penny  for  providing  it.     We 


UNDERFED    CHILDREN  83 

think  we  could  make  a  fairly  satisfactory  meal  for 
a  penny.  That  would  be  a  boon  in  this  way.  We 
have  a  large  number  of  homes  at  Bradford  where 
the  mother  is  working  at  the  mill,  and  from  that 
and  other  causes  a  proper  meal  cannot  be  cooked 
for  the  children.  The  children  come  home  to  a 
very  unsatisfactory  dinner,  perhaps  of  bread  and 
jam  and  tea.  We  hold  that  we  have  done  the 
children  great  physical  good  by  providing  them 
with  more  nutritious  diet  and  a  diet  more  fit  for 
children,  and  that  it  would  be  a  great  boon  to  the 
children  and  to  the  parents  if  we  could  do  that  on 
a  large  scale  and  get  the  money  from  the  parents." 
He  was  of  opinion  that  if  such  a  cheap  meal  were 
available  it  would  be  largely  taken  advantage  of  by 
parents.  Whether  it  is  possible  to  combine  the 
organisation  of  self-supporting  meals  for  children 
whose  parents  pay  with  provision  for  feeding  the 
hungry  and  destitute  is  a  question  on  which  much 
difference  of  opinion  exists.  It  depends  upon  the 
extent  to  which  the  number  of  those  who  have  to 
be  fed  free  can  be  reduced  by  visitation  of  homes. 
This  is  the  key  to  most  of  the  difficulties  raised  in 
regard  to  the  feeding  of  school  children.  Public 
authority  has  made  no  provision  for  a  certain  and  rigid 
inquiry  at  its  home  into  the  case  of  every  child  who 
presents  itself  at  school  unfit  to  receive  instruction  ; 
and  in  this  neglect  of  public  duty  the  Education 
authority  is  backed  up  by  the  Board  of  Education. 
Voluntary  associations,  who  are  eager  to  take  up 
many  of  the  public  duties  which  society  neglects, 


84       THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

have  only  assumed  this  most  vital  duty  in  a  few 
cases.  If  Miss  Frere's  experience  in  Seven  Dials 
is  to  be  relied  on,  a  systematic  visitation  of  underfed 
children's  homes  would  marvellously  reduce  the 
number  of  underfed  children.  Public  authority 
should  at  once  undertake  the  organisation  and 
direction  of  such  a  system  of  visiting,  using  all  that 
volunteer  help  which  in  most  places  would  be 
abundantly  forthcoming.  Instead  of  that,  it  has 
hitherto  been  content  to  sit  by  and  watch  the  feed- 
ing of  children  by  "  charity,"  with  very  perfunctory 
investigation  of  cases  and  with  little  or  no  attempt 
to  compel  the  performance  by  parents  of  their  legal 
duty.  In  a  few  cases  the  charitable  givers  of  dinners 
have  referred  cases  to  the  Society  for  the  Prevention 
of  Cruelty  to  Children,  another  association  which 
takes  up  the  public  duty  of  protecting  children 
which  is  neglected  by  the  established  authorities  ; 
but  a  large  section  of  the  poorer  classes  have  come 
to  regard  the  provision  of  free  dinners  for  their 
children,  at  least  during  the  winter  months,  as  a 
permanent  social  institution,  and  to  rely  upon  this 
precarious  source  for  the  nourishment  which  they 
would  otherwise  have  to  provide  themselves.  Many 
of  them  would  be  able  to  do  it.  So  long  as  the 
law  imposes  on  parents  the  obligation  to  maintain 
their  children  —  the  action  of  ''charity"  in  re- 
lieving them  of  this  liability  tends  to  lower  wages, 
to  enable  higher  house-rents  to  be  screwed  out 
of  the  poor,  and  to  increase  rather  than  diminish 
poverty.      But    it    must    be    clearly    apprehended 


UNDERFED    CHILDREN  85 

that  it  is  not  feeding  the  children  that  occasions 
the  mischief;  it  is  the  omission  to  make  those 
parents  who  can  repay  the  cost  of  so  doing.  To 
feed  the  hungry  child  at  once,  without  any  inquiry 
except  into  the  fact  of  its  hunger,  is  an  imperative 
duty.  Miss  Frere  gives  a  starving  child  a  ticket 
immediately,  before  inquiry,  then  she  visits ;  then, 
if  the  case  is  one  of  distress  which  wants  a  lot 
of  inquiry,  the  child  is  put  on  for  a  fortnight. 
Should  the  result  of  a  system  of  visitation  be  to 
reduce  the  children  who  have  to  be  fed  free  to 
anything  like  the  small  proportion  that  obtains 
in  Tower  Street,  Seven  Dials,  there  is  no  reason 
why  these  should  not  be  provided  for  in  dining- 
rooms  like  those  suggested  for  Bradford,  where 
the  rest  pay :  so  small  a  number,  if  the  same 
precautions  were  taken  as  in  Paris,  would  not 
frighten  away  the  paying  children.  There  should 
be  no  distinction  in  the  dining-room  between  the 
paying  and  the  free  ;  the  latter  should  be  furnished 
with  tickets  like  the  rest,  paid  for  out  of  charitable 
or  Poor  Law  funds.  If,  however,  the  number  of 
free  meals  is  to  remain  at  anything  like  its  present 
number  the  combination  in  the  same  dining-hall  of 
free  and  paying  diners  would  become  in  many  cases 
difficult  or  impossible,  and  it  would  be  necessary 
either  to  give  up  any  system  of  self-supporting 
dinners  or  entirely  to  separate  the  two  classes  of 
children  and  provide  for  them  in  different  establish- 
ments— a  thing  in  itself  undesirable  and  likely  to  be 
productive  of  much  social  mischief. 


86       THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

The  Official  Circulars. 

A  revolution  was  made  in  the  question  of  feeding 
school  children  in   1905,  which  is  still  in  progress, 
and  of  which  it  is  yet  possible  to  foresee  the  final 
result.      In    March    of  that    year    a   descent    was 
made  by  Lady  Warwick,    Dr.   Macnamara,   M.P., 
Dr.    Robert    Hutchison,    M.D.,    Physician   to   the 
Hospital  for  Sick  Children,  Great  Ormond  Street, 
and   myself  upon   the   Johanna    Street    School   of 
the  London  Council,  situated  in  a  very  poor  part 
of  Lambeth.     The  classes  were  carefully  inspected, 
and  about   twenty  boys  were   picked  out  by   Dr. 
Hutchison,  of  whom  he   was  prepared   to   certify 
that  they  were  actually  suffering  from  hunger,  that 
they  were  unfit  to  do  any  school  work,  and  that 
they  were  in  urgent  need  of  immediate  relief  in 
the  shape  of  food.     The  party  then  proceeded  to 
the  offices   of  the  Lambeth   Board  of  Guardians, 
which  was  sitting  at  the  time,   and  requested  an 
interview   which    was    most    courteously   granted. 
They   then    made   application    to    the    Board,    on 
behalf  of  the  boys  whose  names  had  been  taken 
down,  for  food  and  relief,  and  demanded  that  the 
relieving  officers  should  be  directed  to  proceed  to 
the  school    and   furnish    food    immediately  to    the 
boys,  of  whom  a  list  was  furnished  to  the  Guardians. 
This  application  was  granted.      The  further  pro- 
ceedings of  the    Board  and  their  relieving  officer 
are   of  no    consequence,    because    the    matter  was 
immediately   after   brought    to    the   notice   of  the 


UNDERFED    CHILDREN  87 

House  of  Commons,  and  it  was  admitted  by  the 
President  of  the  Local  Government  Board  that 
children  in  the  state  of  those  in  the  Johanna 
Street  School  were  entitled  to  immediate  relief 
from  the  Poor  Law  authorities,  irrespective  of 
the  condition  and  conduct  of  their  parents,  and 
he  promised  that  circulars  should  be  issued  by 
his  department  and  the  Board  of  Education  call- 
ing attention  to  the  rights  of  hungry  children, 
and  directing  school  teachers  and  managers  to 
take  steps  for  enforcing  them.  The  object  which 
prompted  the  action  of  Lady  Warwick  and  her 
party  was  thus  fully  attained.  The  promised 
circulars  were  issued  in  April,  1905,  and  confer- 
ences took  place  between  the  county,  municipal, 
and  urban  councils  and  the  various  Boards  of 
Guardians  in  their  districts  as  to  the  best  method 
of  carrying  them  into  effect.  Various  plans  were 
adopted,  and,  until  reports  have  been  made  upon 
the  feeding  of  school  children  in  the  several  places 
during  the  winter  of  1905-6,  it  is  premature  to 
judge  of  the  efficacy  of  the  circulars,  or  to  discuss 
how  far  the  friendly  co-operation  of  Education 
authorities  and  Boards  of  Guardians  can  get 
over  the  inconvenience  of  having  a  public  duty 
of  this  kind  entrusted  to  two  bodies,  instead  of 
one.  It  was  the  best  makeshift  without  legislation  : 
and  the  Government  at  the  time  were  incompetent 
to  carry  any  legislation  through.  It  is  doubtless 
quite  possible  for  the  two  authorities  and  the  two 
departments  of  Government,  if  they  could  agree, 


88       THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

to  establish  a  system  by  which  every  hungry  child 
would  be  fed,  every  ignorant  parent  instructed,  and 
every  negligent  parent  coerced  into  doing  his  duty. 
But  no  such  agreement  is  likely.  Boards  of 
Guardians  and  municipal  councils  act,  as  we  have 
before  seen,  on  very  different  principles,  and  the 
issue  of  the  circulars  was  not  regarded  with  much 
favour  by  the  permanent  officials  of  the  depart- 
ments concerned.  Until  a  better  and  more  effective 
plan  is  established  by  some  strong  minister  either 
at  the  Local  Government  Board  or  Board  of 
Education,  the  circulars  will  do  little  more  than 
stand  on  record  as  an  acknowledgment  of  the 
public  obligation,  and  will  in  few  places  be  of 
any  practical  use  to  the  children,  as  the  following 
example  shows. 

In  a  large  city  in  Yorkshire  the  Education 
authority  sent,  at  the  beginning  of  the  year 
1906,  a  list  of  upwards  of  3,000  children,  whom 
they  alleged  to  be  underfed  to  the  Board  of 
Guardians.  After  two  months'  inquiry  1,347  of 
these  cases  had  been  dealt  with  in  the  following 
manner.  In  399  the  parents  assured  the  relieving 
officer  that  the  children  were  sent  to  school  properly 
fed  ;  the  assurance  was  accepted  as  satisfactory, 
and  no  further  steps  were  taken.  There  was  no 
medical  examination.  In  291  cases  the  Guardians 
accepted  a  written  undertaking,  signed  by  the  parent 
undertaking  to  feed  the  child  properly,  as  a  sufficient 
guarantee  for  the  child's  future  nourishment.  The 
requiring  of  such  an  undertaking  seems  to  establish 


UNDERFED    CHILDREN  89 

the  fact  that,  in  the  opinion  of  the  Guardians,  the 
child  had  been  previously  underfed.  In  229  cases 
the  relieving  officer  found  that  the  family  required 
more  help  than  the  mere  feeding  of  the  school 
children.  These  also  had  therefore,  in  the  opinion 
of  the  Guardians,  been  previously  underfed.  Sixty- 
six  children  did  not  come  within  the  terms  of  the 
order,  because  they  did  not  live  with  their  fathers, 
or  from  some  such  cause,  though  why  these  children 
should  be  left  to  starvation  does  not  appear; 
331  children  were  fed  under  the  Order  by  persons 
reimbursed  by  the  Guardians ;  and  3 1  were  cases 
of  neglect  in  which  the  food  was  given  on  loan 
to  be  repaid  by  the  parent.  Some  150  more 
cases  were  afterwards  disposed  of,  and  further 
proceedings  then  deferred  to  await  the  fate  of  a 
Bill  for  feeding  school  children  which  was  at  that 
time  before  Parliament.  This  probably  gives  a 
fair  sample  of  the  operation  and  effect  of  the 
circulars.  More  than  two-thirds  of  those  whose 
cases  were  examined  proved  to  be,  even  in  the 
opinion  of  the  Board  of  Guardians,  underfed  :  how 
far  the  relief  was  proper  and  adequate  may  be 
left  to  the  judgment  of  the  reader.  If  the  pro- 
portion in  the  cases  uninvestigated  is  the  same 
as  in  the  investigated  cases,  more  than  1,000 
children  had  been  starving  in  this  city  since  the 
commencement  of  the  year  1906,  about  whom  no 
inquiry  had  been  made,  and  nothing  had  been 
done.  Let  us  hope  the  procedure  of  Parliament 
will    be   more   rapid   than   that   of   this    Board   of 


90       THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

Guardians  if  the  hungry  children  are   to  wait  for 
food  until  this  Bill  has  been  disposed  of. 

There  is  one  advantage  in  having  a  public  meal 
for  school  children,  carried  on  under  public  superin- 
tendence, that  must  not  be  overlooked.  It  would 
enable  the  school  medical  officer,  as  soon  as  there 
was  one,  to  prescribe  a  diet  for  an  ailing  child, 
with  the  assurance  that  his  prescription  would 
be  carried  out.  Children  generally,  and  poorly 
nourished  children  especially,  require  food  much 
more  than  physic.  Parents  should,  of  course, 
have  the  right  to  feed  their  children  according  to 
the  doctor's  order  at  home  ;  but  if  it  was  found 
that  the  orders  were  not  properly  carried  out,  it 
should  be  in  the  power  of  the  Education  authority 
to  make  an  order  for  the  child  to  attend  for  a 
specified  period  the  public  school  table  for  which 
the  parent  should  be  liable  to  pay ;  or  it  might 
be  convenient  for  the  parent  voluntarily  to  arrange 
for  the  child's  attendance  from  the  first.  It  would 
give  the  doctor  the  opportunity  of  watching  the 
effect  of  diet  upon  the  patient,  and  of  giving 
extra  or  special  diet  in  particular  cases  as  part 
of  the  treatment. 


CHAPTER  VI 

OVERWORKED   CHILDREN 

Labour  out  of  School-hours 

A  GREAT  number  of  children  in  the  public 
elementary  schools  have  their  health  seriously 
injured  out  of  school-hours  by  overwork.  They 
are  employed  for  long  hours  before  and  after  school, 
and  are  thereby  deprived  of  rest  and  sleep,  and 
come  to  their  school  work  tired  out  and  quite  unfit 
to  grapple  with  either  the  bodily  or  intellectual 
efforts  required  of  them.  The  history  of  how  this 
evil,  tending  to  the  serious  deterioration  of  public 
health,  was  brought  before  the  notice  of  the  public 
authorities,  and  how  entirely  up  to  the  present  time 
it  has  proved  impossible  for  our  governments, 
central  and  local,  to  find  an  adequate  remedy  for  it, 
is  a  most  instructive  lesson  as  to  the  way  in  which 
the  common  interests  of  the  nation  are  mismanaged. 

Mrs.  Hoares  Deputation 

The  excessive  labour  of  school  children   out  of 
school  hours  was  brought  officially  to  the  notice  of 

9* 


92       THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

the  Government,  not  by  the  inspectors  of  schools 
who  were  imbued  with  the  theory  of  the  depart- 
ment that  it  was  no  business  of  theirs  to  regard  the 
physical  condition  of  the  children,  but  by  a  private 
lady,  Mrs.  Hoare,  who  died  without  seeing  even 
such  fruits  of  her  labour  as  were  afforded  by  the 
attempt  to  legislate  for  these  unhappy  children. 
She  had  collected  the  facts  about  the  employment 
of  school  children  out  of  school  hours  in  certain 
London  schools,  had  published  them  in  an  article  in 
the  Nineteenth  Century,  and  then,  in  the  year  1897, 
asked  the  Education  Department  to  receive  a  deputa- 
tion on  the  subject.  Her  request  was  at  first  refused 
on  the  ground  that  the  matter,  being  one  which 
related  to  the  health  and  not  to  the  "  education  " 
of  the  children,  concerned  the  Home  Office  and  not 
the  Education  Department ;  but  Mrs.  Hoare,  who 
thought  the  latter  would  be  more  sympathetic  than 
the  former,  cleverly  argued  that  she  was  going  to 
lay  facts  before  the  department  to  prove  that  the 
public  money  which  it  was  its  function  to  dispense 
was  wasted  by  being  applied  to  scholars  unfit  to  be 
instructed,  and  that  she  would  indicate  remedies 
which  would  lead  to  a  more  economic  expenditure 
of  the  public  grant.  Mrs.  Hoare's  deputation  was 
on  this  consideration  received,  and  laid  formally 
before  the  Education  Department  the  facts  which 
she  had  collected  about  London  schools.  An  inquiry 
was  demanded  into  the  existence  of  similar  evils  in 
other  parts  of  the  country.  In  reply  to  the  depu- 
tation the  inquiry  asked  for  was  promised,  but  there 


OVERWORKED    CHILDREN  93 

proved  to  be  a  good  deal  of  difficulty  in  instituting 

it.     The    Education    Department  could    not  move 

according  to  official  etiquette  without  consultation 

with  the  Home  Office  and  the  Local  Government 

Board,  and  the  officials  of  these  departments  were 

unsympathetic.     The  deadlock  was  happily  solved 

by  a  convenient  member  of  the  Opposition  in  the 

House   of  Commons,    who   in    1898    moved   for  a 

return  such  as  Mrs.  Hoare  had  asked  for,  which  the 

Government   found   it   impossible  to  refuse.     The 

return  was  to  show  the  number  of  children  on  the 

books   of  schools   as   full-time  scholars   who  were 

themselves    working    for    wages    or  employed  for 

profit,  with  their  ages,  standard,  occupation,  hours  of 

labour,    and    wages.     Forms    were  issued   to   the 

20,000  elementary  schools  in  England  and  Wales, 

and   returns   were   obtained   from   all    but  520 — a 

striking   testimony    to   the   zeal   of  managers   and 

teachers  in   promoting   the   physical  well-being  of 

their  scholars. 


Education  Department  Return 

The  return  was  a  very  painful  one,  and  cast  a 
lurid  light  upon  the  condition  of  a  large  class  of  the 
population.  It  fully  bore  out  Mrs.  Hoare's  con- 
tentions, and  though  no  doubt  containing  inaccuracies 
and  exaggerations  of  detail,  has  been  admitted,  on 
subsequent  inquiry,  to  contain  a  true  picture  of  the 
condition  of  a  large  class  of  elementary  school 
children.    The  returns  sent  in  from  the  schools  gave 


94        THE    CHILDREN   OF    THE    NATION 

the  names  of  144,000  boys  and  34,000  girls,  as 
working  for  wages  or  employed  for  profit  out  of 
school  hours ;  and  about  1,000  more  were  added  after- 
wards ;  but  the  returns  showed  upon  their  face  that 
in  many  cases  they  comprised  only  a  part  of  the 
children  at  work,  only  those  in  regular  employment ; 
no  notice  was  taken  of  those  in  casual  or  seasonal 
employment.  "  Many  children  are  kept  from 
school,"  says  one  correspondent,  "  for  days,  some- 
times weeks,  together,  for  such  work  as  picking 
stones,  weeding,  sheep-shearing,  harvest,  and  potato- 
picking."  "  During  the  hat-sewing  season,"  says 
another,  "from  about  February  to  Whitsuntide, 
many  girls  of  all  ages  are  employed,  both  before 
and  after  school  hours,  in  sewing  hats  for  their 
mothers.  Some  have  been  known  to  work  from 
6  a.m.  to  the  time  for  coming  to  school,  and  again 
from  school-closing  in  the  afternoon  until  bedtime." 
The  names  of  none  of  these  appear  in  the  returns. 
Many  omitted  the  names  of  those  who  did  not 
themselves  receive  wages,  but  whose  earnings  were 
paid  to  their  parents,  of  those  whose  employment 
had  not  been  prejudicial  to  health,  and  of  those  who 
had  been  employed  during  school  hours,  as  well  as 
before  or  after.  As  to  the  mischief  of  the  system, 
the  opinion  of  managers  and  teachers  was  unani- 
mous. "  One  boy,"  says  a  manager,  "  begins 
work  for  his  father  as  early  as  3  a.m.,  and  works 
again  in  the  evening  as  late  as  9  p.m.  He  often 
goes  to  sleep  during  morning  school  from  sheer 
weariness.     Another    boy    employed    at    'placing 


OVERWORKED    CHILDREN  95 

skittles '  for  34 J  hours  per  week,  says  he  is  engaged 
from  6  to  11  p.m.  daily.  The  lad  is  often  asleep  in 
the  afternoon  during  the  progress  of  the  lessons." 
"  May  I  be  allowed,"  says  another,  "  to  express  my 
gratitude  to  the  Education  Department  for  making 
these  inquiries,  and  to  express  the  hope  that  that 
Department  will  be  able  to  frame  some  regulations 
to  meet  and  relieve  the  onerous  conditions  under 
which  many  of  the  young  have  to  gain  education. 
Without  exaggeration  I  can  truthfully  assert  that 
there  are  to-day  in  our  National  and  Board  Schools 
thousands  of  little  white  slaves."  A  School  Board 
passed  a  resolution  "  that  some  appropriate  action 
should  be  taken  by  Government  to  prevent  the 
excessive  amount  of  labour  found  to  be  customary 
amongst  school  children,  which  must  interfere  with 
the  success  of  their  studies  or  with  their  health."  It 
is  probable  that  it  would  interfere  with  both.  Em- 
ployment of  these  little  ones  begins  at  a  very  early 
age — 131  were  six  or  under  ;  1,120  between  six  and 
seven;  4,211  between  seven  and  eight;  11,027 
between  eight  and  nine;  and  22,131  between  nine 
and  ten.  These  are  some  specimens  of  the  sort  of 
work  these  children  did,  and  the  amount  of  wages 
they  earned.  A  little  boy  of  six  peeled  onions 
20  hours  a  week,  for  a  weekly  wage  of  8d.  Another 
delivered  milk  for  28  hours  a  week,  for  a  weekly 
wage  of  2s.  Another  was  engaged  in  V  turning 
hose  "  for  20  hours  a  week,  and  was  paid  by  6d. 
being  credited  weekly  to  his  savings-bank  account. 
There  was  a  little  boy  engaged  in  pea-picking  at 


96       THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

3d.  a  week.  A  little  girl  under  six  carried  milk  for 
35  hours  a  week  for  her  parents,  and  earned  no 
wages.  Another  "  seamed  hose  "  for  15  hours  at  a 
weekly  wage  of  id.  Another  was  a  nurse-girl — a 
nurse-girl  under  six ! — who  worked  for  29  hours  a 
week  for  2d.  and  her  food.  Another  under  six  was 
an  errand  girl  and  ran  about  the  street  1 5  hours  a 
week  for  6d.  The  educational  attainments  of  these 
children  were,  of  course,  very  low  :  329  were  in  no 
standard  ;  3,890  in  the  first ;  1 1,686  in  the  second  ; 
24,624  in  the  third  ;  and  36,907  in  the  fourth. 
Selling  newspapers  in  the  street  occupied  15,182  ; 
hawking  other  articles,  2,435  J  other  occupations, 
such  as  knocking  people  up  in  the  morning,  8,627  ; 
service  in  shops,  76,173;  agriculture,  6,115;  odd 
jobs,  10,636;  minding  babies,  11,585;  house  and 
laundry  work,  9,254  ;  needle- work,  card-box  making, 
&c,  4,019.  The  hours  of  labour  were  excessive. 
Only  39,355  were  employed  for  so  short  a  time  as 
10  hours  a  week;  60,268  from  10  to  20  hours; 
27,008  from  20  to  30  hours ;  9,778  from  30  to  40 
hours ;  2,390  from  40  to  50  hours  ;  and  793  above 
50  hours  a  week,  of  whom  75  were  actually  em- 
ployed over  70  hours  a  week.  The  reader  may  be 
curious  to  know  what  these  boys  and  girls  who  were 
employed  for  more  than  70  hours  a  week  worked  at 
and  what  wages  they  received.  A  boy  of  ten  in 
Standard  IV.  was  returned  as  a  farm  labourer 
working  72  hours  a  week  for  a  wage  of  3s.  A  boy 
of  twelve,  in  Standard  IV.,  worked  as  a  farm 
labourer  87  hours  a  week  for  a  wage  of  2s.  6d.     A 


OVERWORKED    CHILDREN  97 

newspaper  boy,  aged  twelve,  in  Standard  VI., 
worked  ioo  hours  a  week,  that  included  Sundays, 
and  received  3s.  6d.  and  his  meals.  A  boy  of 
twelve,  in  Standard  III.,  was  employed  in  a 
marine  store  dealer's  for  74  hours  a  week  for  is.  6d. 
and  his  meals.  A  boy  of  ten,  in  Standard  IV.,  was 
a  donkey  driver  for  80  hours  a  week,  at  a  wage  of 
6s.  There  was  in  London  a  boy  of  twelve,  in 
Standard  V.,  employed  in  a  chemist's  shop  for 
yS  hours  a  week  at  a  wage  of  5s.  There  was  also 
in  London  an  errand  boy  of  twelve,  in  Standard  VII., 
probably  from  his  school  attainments  a  promising 
boy,  employed  in  a  dairy  for  72  hours  a  week  for 
4s.  and  his  food.  It  would  have  been  economical 
for  the  country  to  have  delivered  such  a  boy  from 
such  conditions,  as  it  is  probable  something  could 
have  been  made  of  him  of  advantage  to  the  com- 
munity. By  this  time  it  is  too  late.  If  alive,  he  is 
now  twenty  years  old  and  probably  an  unskilled 
labourer  for  life.  A  girl  of  thirteen  worked 
72  hours  in  a  shop  for  a  wage  of  2s.  There  were  a 
number  of  girls  of  various  ages  and  standards 
returned  as  carrying  bark  for  wood-cutters.  They 
worked  70J  hours  a  week  for  a  wage  of  6s.  The 
returns  furnished  examples  of  many  concrete  cases, 
of  which  the  following  will  serve  as  samples.  A 
boy  rose  between  3  and  4  every  morning,  started 
out  at  4.30  to  wake  up  25  working  men,  who 
each  paid  him  3d.  a  week  ;  he  returned  from  his 
rounds  about  5.30,  but  did  not  go  to  bed  again, 
as  he  had  to  go  round  as  a  newspaper  boy  from 


98       THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

6  to  9  when  he  was  due  at  school.  He  was  a 
very  regular  boy  at  school,  but  often  half  asleep. 
Another  boy  acted  as  a  latherer  to  a  barber  for 
32  hours  for  a  wage  of  2s.  He  worked  the  whole 
of  Saturday  till  11  p.m.  and  for  3  hours  on  Sunday 
morning.  A  greengrocer's  boy  aged  twelve, 
Standard  II.,  had  to  start  for  London  at  2.30  a.m. 
every  morning,  returned  about  9.30,  and  then  went 
to  school !  There  were  two  girls  aged  twelve  in 
Standard  IV.,  one  was  employed  in  house- work  and 
errands  from  7.45  a.m.  to  10,  12.30  to  1.30,  and 
4.30  to  8,  for  3d.  a  week  ;  the  other  at  9d.  a  week 
and  her  food  for  carrying  out  parcels  for  a  milliner 
from  7.30  to  9.30,  12.30  to  1.30,  and  4.30  to  8. 
The  intervals  were  spent  by  these  two  girls  in 
school,  with  what  torture  to  their  poor  brains  and 
with  what  educational  result  the  reader  may 
conjecture. 

Reception  of  the  Return 

These  returns  were  laid  before  Parliament  in 
1899.  They  were  fully  explained  and  pressed 
upon  the  attention  of  the  House  of  Commons 
in  the  official  address  of  the  then  Vice-President, 
when  submitting  the  Education  estimates  of  the 
year  to  the  House  of  Commons.  He  spoke 
of  little  else,  and  endeavoured  to  bring  home  to 
the  conviction  of  members  Mrs.  Hoare's  argument 
that  it  was  a  waste  of  public  money  to  attempt 
to  give  instruction  at  school  to  children  so 
wearied  by   overwork.      But   the  House  of   Com- 


OVERWORKED    CHILDREN  99 

mons  refused  to  pay  any  attention  to  the  subject,  it 
went  off  into  a  discussion  of  alleged  improper 
teaching  of  the  Church  Catechism  to  Nonconfor- 
mist children,  and  of  the  exact  personal  relations 
then  subsisting  between  the  Vice-President  and  his 
official  superiors,  and  passed  the  miserable  con- 
dition of  overworked  children  by  as  unworthy  of 
the  consideration  of  the  Legislature  in  comparison 
with  party  and  personal  squabbles.  The  matter 
was,  however,  though  ignored  by  Parliament,  taken 
up  in  the  course  of  the  autumn  of  that  year  by  local 
authorities  in  various  parts  of  England  and  Wales. 
The  condition  of  the  children,  and  the  remedies 
that  should  be  applied,  were  discussed  by  Town 
Councils,  by  Boards  of  Guardians,  by  School 
Boards,  and  by  the  representatives  of  Voluntary 
Schools. 

Joint  Committee 

So  great  a  public  interest  upon  the  subject  was 
aroused  that  the  Government  found  itself  con- 
strained, at  the  beginning  of  1900,  to  appoint  a  joint 
committee  of  the  Home  Office  and  the  Board  of 
Education  (as  the  department  was  then  to  be  called 
by  Act  of  Parliament)  to  consider  the  question 
afresh  and  to  advise  what  legislation  should  be 
recommended  to  remedy  the  mischievous  social 
evils  which  had  been  laid  bare.  The  committee  so 
appointed  acted  with  marvellous  promptitude. 
Unlike  Government  committees  in  general,  it  did 
not  waste  any  time  in  rediscovering  all  the  facts  that 


100     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

had  been  brought  to  light  by  the  returns  from  the 
20,000  elementary  schools,  nor  in  testing  every 
individual  case  in  which  it  was  alleged  that  those 
returns  were  incorrect  or  exaggerated.  It  accepted 
the  fact  that  a  large  number  of  children  attending 
as  full  timers  in  the  public  elementary  schools  were 
overworked  out  of  school  hours,  and  that  the  exact 
number  or  percentage  was  of  no  importance,  and 
set  itself  to  discover  a  practical  remedy.  The 
committee  reported  in  1901,  recommended  legis- 
lation, and  submitted  the  draft  of  a  Bill  which  gave 
to  County  and  Borough  Councils  power  to  make 
by-laws  for  regulating  the  employment  of  children  ; 
they  were  empowered  by  the  clauses  of  the  Bill 
to  prescribe  the  age  below  which  and  the  hours 
beyond  which  all  working  of  children  for  wages  or 
profit  should  be  illegal  and  to  restrict  the  employ- 
ment to  occupations  neither  harmful  to  their  health 
nor  dangerous  to  their  morals.  A  Bill,  practically 
identical  with  that  recommended  in  the  Report  of 
the  committee,  was  introduced  in  the  following  year, 
1902,  but  was  not  proceeded  with  owing  to  the 
time  of  Parliament  being  occupied  with  subjects 
more  interesting  to  the  governing  classes.  It  was, 
however,  again  introduced  in  1903,  and  had  the 
good  luck  in  that  session  to  pass  into  law. 

Theatrical  Children 

An  alteration  was  made  in  the  Bill  while  passing 
through  the    House   of  Commons  that   is   worthy 


OVERWORKED    CHILDREN  101 

of  notice,  as  illustrating  the  immense  influence 
which  what  is  called  "  Society  "  then  exercised  over 
the  British  Government.  The  managers  of  fashion- 
able theatres  in  London  took  it  into  their  heads 
that  the  local  authority,  which  in  London  was  the 
County  Council,  might  so  use  the  powers  entrusted 
to  them  as  to  interfere  with  the  performances  of 
children  in  pantomimes  and  fairy  extravaganzas, 
and  they  stirred  up  "  Society,"  alarmed  at  the  possi- 
bility of  a  curtailment  of  its  pleasures,  to  demand 
the  exemption  of  theatrical  children  from  the  pro- 
tection of  the  proposed  Act.  Their  influence  was 
great  enough  to  induce  the  Home  Office  to  propose 
a  clause  in  committee  exempting  children  employed 
in  theatres  and  circuses  from  the  operation  of  the 
Act.  In  the  Standing  Committee  to  which  the  Bill 
was  referred  the  proposal  was  rejected  by  an  almost 
unanimous  vote.  The  proposal  was  then  discussed 
and  voted  on  by  those  who  had  heard  the  arguments 
on  both  sides.  There  are  no  children  who  stand 
more  in  need  of  protection  than  those  who  are  to 
be  found  in  touring  theatrical  companies  and  travel- 
ling circuses.  The  existing  law,  which  merely 
required  such  children  to  be  licensed  by  magistrates 
in  the  town  at  which  the  company  had  arrived  for 
performance  there,  had  proved  quite  insufficient  to 
secure  their  proper  care  in  many  companies  while 
on  tour.  Children  who  are  regularly  employed  in 
the  theatres  in  London,  Manchester,  Liverpool,  &c, 
are  well  treated  and  well  paid.  But  it  is  quite 
different  with  those  who  go  about  with  some  of  the 


102     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

touring  companies  and  circuses.  They  are  dragged 
in  misery  and  discomfort  from  town  to  town,  and  so 
far  from  being  well  cared  for,  they  are  often  let  out 
by  drunken  mothers  and  given  in  charge  of  the 
woman  who  keeps  the  theatre  wardrobe  or  whoever 
will  take  care  of  them  at  the  cheapest  price.  They 
are  ill  paid  and  ill  taught,  they  are  made  to  beg 
from  the  audience,  the  condition  in  which  they 
live  is  injurious  to  health,  and  they  are  altogether 
objects  deserving  of  pity  and  protection.  The 
company  usually  travels  from  town  to  town  on 
Sunday,  and  first  thing  on  Monday  morning  the 
children  are  dragged  before  the  police  court,  amongst 
drunken  people  and  thieves,  to  be  licensed.  No 
theatrical  manager  would  ever  allow  his  own 
children  to  be  taken  about  in  a  travelling  company, 
or  even  to  go  on  the  stage  at  all,  till  they  arrived  at 
years  of  discretion.  So  great,  however,  was  the 
social  influence  brought  to  bear  on  the  Government 
that  they  made  use  of  their  resistless  majority  to 
reverse  by  a  vote  in  the  House  of  Commons  the 
almost  unanimous  decision  of  the  committee.  In  a 
proceeding  of  this  kind  most  of  the  supporters  of 
the  Government  have  not  heard  any  arguments  at 
all ;  they  often  do  not  know  what  they  are  voting 
about,  but  they  rush  in,  at  the  sound  of  the  division 
bell,  from  the  terrace,  the  library,  or  the  smoking- 
room,  and  go  into  the  division  lobby,  which  is 
indicated  to  them  by  a  gesture  of  the  Government 
Whip,  who  stands  at  the  door.  This  is  party 
discipline,  and  no  one  is  thought  by  the  governing 


OVERWORKED    CHILDREN  103 

classes  to  be  fit  to  be  a  member  of  Parliament  who 
does  not  meekly  and  subserviently  yield  thereto  :  it 
is  called  "  loyalty." 

How  the  Act  is  Administered 

The  Act  became  law  on  January  i,  1904,  but 
in  most  places  the  deliverance  of  the  overworked 
children  is  still  a  long  way  off.  The  local  authorities 
belong,  to  a  very  great  extent,  to  the  governing 
class,  and  are  not  much  under  the  influence  of 
working-class  opinion  ;  the  people  themselves  are 
apathetic ;  the  matter  for  the  most  part  affects  only 
the  very  poor ;  it  is  hard  for  them  in  their  desperate 
struggle  for  bread  to  forego  even  the  miserable 
earnings  of  these  wretched  children  ;  if  they  were 
even  convinced  of  the  fact  that  child  labour  lowers 
wages,  their  needs  are  too  urgent  to  admit  of  the 
delay  while  economic  laws  operate.  It  has  thus 
come  to  pass  that  many  authorities,  in  the  absence 
of  any  pressure  from  without,  have  not  moved  at 
all.  The  Government  were  very  careful  that  the 
law  should  be  permissive  only,  and  refused  to  allow 
clauses  to  be  inserted  that  would  have  obliged  all 
authorities  to  make  some  provision  for  the  protec- 
tion of  children.  In  some  cases  the  convenience  of 
the  richer  classes  has  stimulated  the  Town  Council 
into  action.  In  a  fashionable  residential  town  like 
Leamington  the  street  boys  and  girls  may  become 
a  nuisance  to  the  visitors,  and  their  regulation  adds 
to  the  amenities  of  the  place.     In  Liverpool  a  local 


104      THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

Act  has  long  been  in  operation  to  mitigate  the 
nuisance  of  street  sellers,  boys  and  girls.  It  has 
not  only  preserved  order  in  the  streets  to  the 
advantage  of  the  rich ;  it  has  also  promoted  the 
moral  and  physical  welfare  of  the  children  of  the 
poor.  No  child  may  sell  newspapers,  matches,  or 
anything  else  in  the  street  without  a  licence  from 
the  police  authorities.  The  child  must  wear  a 
badge,  showing  by  its  colour  whether  it  is  exempt 
from  school  attendance  or  not.  The  hours  of 
selling  are  regulated  :  no  child  not  exempt  from 
school  attendance  may  sell  during  school  hours. 
Licensed  children  must  be  decently  dressed  and 
may  not  enter  a  public-house.  Breach  of  these 
regulations  involves  loss  of  licence. 

By-laws 

Great  delay  has  been  caused  in  those  places 
where  the  authorities  are  eager  to  put  the  Act  in 
force  by  the  provision  that  their  by-laws  must  be 
approved  by  the  Home  Office.  Such  a  condition 
is  common  in  all  Acts  of  Parliament  dealing  with 
social  questions,  and  always  gives  rise  to  procrasti- 
nation and  red  tape.  The  department  in  such  a 
case  does  not  confine  its  criticism  to  seeing  that  the 
by-laws  submitted  contain  nothing  repugnant  to  the 
general  law  or  to  the  ordinary  maxims  of  justice ; 
they  assume  that  they  can  determine  what  is  for  the 
interest  of  the  people  of  Leeds  or  Birmingham  better 
than   the   City   Council    which   directly    represents 


OVERWORKED    CHILDREN  105 

them  ;  they  are  ready  to  listen  to  powerful  interests, 
to  institute  local  inquiries,  and  to  review  generally 
the  action  of  the  City  Council  in  making  by-laws. 
In  the  case  of  London  the  whole  subject  was  rein- 
vestigated in  1905  by  a  Home  Office  inquiry  into 
the  by-laws  made  by  the  London  County  Council. 
Mrs.  Hoare's  labours,  the  Education  Office  returns, 
the  Report  of  the  Joint  Committee,  the  discussions 
in  Parliament,  and  the  Bill  as  settled  by  the  Stand- 
ing Committee,  all  went  for  nothing ;  the  policy  of 
restricting  child  labour  in  London  was  all  gone  into 
anew.  I  do  not  know  whether  the  evidence  taken 
in  this  inquiry  has  been  published,  but  I  heard  from 
a  medical  witness  who  had  just  been  giving  evidence 
a  significant  fact  worthy  of  the  attention  of  the 
reader.  Reference  has  been  made  in  a  previous 
chapter  to  the  care  which  the  poorest  of  the  Jews 
take  of  the  health  of  their  children.  Investigation 
into  the  barbers'  shops  in  the  poorest  quarters  of 
London  showed  that  there  was  a  considerable 
number  of  Jew  barbers,  but  not  a  single  Jew 
"lather-boy"  was  to  be  found.  The  Jews  let  their 
children  sleep  till  it  is  time  for  breakfast  and  school. 
It  is  not  surprising  to  learn  that  at  the  date 
when  this  is  written — ten  years  after  Mrs.  Hoare 
published  her  facts — out  of  266  local  authorities 
capable  of  making  by-laws  for  the  protection  of 
children,  only  90  have  framed  by-laws  and  sub- 
mitted them  for  approval  by  the  Home  Office.  In 
49  cases  only  have  by-laws  been  approved  and  are 
now   in  force.     The    London   school   children,  on 


106     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

whose   behalf  Mrs.    Hoare   originally  moved,   are 
still  unprotected. 

Child  Labour  in  Berlin 

The  brassworkers  of  Birmingham,  whose  inquiry 
into  the  social  condition  of  the  people  of  Berlin  will 
be  referred  to  in  a  subsequent  chapter,  reported  on 
the  subject  of  child  labour  there.  "If  children "  (at 
school)  "  desire  to  work  at  any  employment  in  the 
afternoons  they  must  get  permission  from  the  police. 
At  this  school  "  (one  of  2,000  children)  "  from  fifteen 
to  twenty  boys  are  so  occupied,  mostly  on  errands ; 
and  from  ten  to  fifteen  girls  as  little  minders  of 
children.  No  child  vendors  of  newspapers  are  seen 
in  the  streets.  No  young  girls  are  permitted  by 
the  authorities  to  stand  in  the  gutters  selling  flowers. 
Schoolboy  smoking  is  not  allowed.  The  boy  would 
have  his  cigarette  knocked  out  of  his  mouth  if  seen 
by  a  workman  in  the  street,  and  the  workman  would 
be  thanked  by  the  parents  for  doing  so." 

Incompetence 

The  story  of  this  attempt  at  reform  illustrates 
the  impotence  which  threatens  the  stability  of  our 
present  social  system  and  the  incapacity  of  the 
governing  classes  to  carry  out  the  simplest  measure 
of  social  reform,  even  one  which  does  not  affect 
their  interests  and  on  the  necessity  for  which  they 
are  themselves  agreed.  It  seems  to  justify  the 
people  in  revolting  against  both  parties  into  which 
the  governing  classes  have  divided  themselves,  in 


OVERWORKED    CHILDREN  107 

forming  independent  labour  parties,  and  in  en- 
deavouring to  take  the  regulation  of  society  into 
their  own  hands.  The  present  holders  of  power, 
according  to  the  view  of  the  rising  party  of  the 
people,  have  had  their  opportunity  ;  they  have 
failed  to  avail  themselves  of  it,  and  the  carrying 
out  of  necessary  reforms  must  now  pass  into  other 
hands. 


CHAPTER  VII 


CHILDREN  S    AILMENTS 


THE  medical  examination  of  children  in  the 
public  elementary  schools  which  has  already 
taken  place,  though  partial  and  incomplete  and 
quite  insufficient  to  furnish  reliable  scientific  data, 
does  give  notice  of  the  kinds  of  ailments  and 
diseases  which  a  more  perfect  examination  would 
disclose,  and  of  the  sort  of  provision  the  public 
authority  will  have  to  make  if  it  is  either  to  under- 
take remedial  treatment  itself  or  see  that  such 
treatment  is  carried  out  by  parents  or  charitable 
societies. 

Heredity 

The  extent  to  which  disease  is  transmitted  from 
parent  to  child  is  still  a  subject  of  scientific  discus- 
sion. But  it  is  generally  admitted  that  the  amount 
of  such  disease  is  relatively  small ;  that  it  is  about 
equally  spread  over  all  classes  of  the  population  ; 
and  that  only  two  species,  syphilis  and  alcoholism, 
are  common  enough  to  demand  the  attention  of  the 

108 


CHILDREN'S    AILMENTS  109 

social  reformer.  Both  these  diseases  will  be  dis- 
cussed more  in  detail  in  a  subsequent  chapter ;  it  is 
enough  to  remark  here  that  they  affect  adults  at 
first  more  than  children,  and  that  it  is  only  by  the 
spread  of  temperance,  soberness,  chastity,  and 
cleanliness  amongst  the  general  body  of  the  people 
that  they  can  be  got  rid  of.  Much  can,  no  doubt, 
be  done  by  public  authority  to  instruct  children  in 
the  schools  and  young  people  in  the  continuation 
classes  as  to  the  physical  effects  of  alcohol  on  the 
human  body,  but  public  opinion  does  not  at  present 
sanction  any  effective  restraint  upon  those  who  have 
become  victims  of  dipsomania.  Still  less  will  it 
sanction  any  instruction  of  the  young  on  the  subject 
of  the  latter  disease  or  any  compulsory  hospital 
treatment  of  those  who  disseminate  it.  The  experi- 
ment of  examination  and  hospital  treatment  was 
tried  forty  years  ago,  but  it  had  to  be  given  up 
owing  to  the  violent  hostility  of  opponents,  though 
it  is  remarkable  that  in  those  towns  where  the  Con- 
tagious Diseases  Acts  had  been  for  some  years  in 
force  there  was  an  almost  unanimous  opinion  in 
their  favour  on  the  part  of  doctors,  clergy  both  of 
the  Church  and  of  Nonconformist  bodies,  magis- 
trates, and,  last  but  not  least,  of  the  workers  them- 
selves. In  the  case  of  school  children  they  suffer, 
if  at  all,  from  the  secondary  effects  of  these  diseases, 
and  it  is  the  secondary  symptoms  that  have  to  be 
treated.  The  medical  inspector  can  advise  in  each 
case  the  course  to  be  adopted. 


110     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

Diseased  Glands 

In  all  the  medical  examinations  that  have  taken 
place  a  large  proportion  of  the  children  are  found 
to  be  suffering  from  diseases  of  the  glands,  more  or 
less  advanced.  They  are  not  dangerous  in  them- 
selves, but  they  are  the  signs  of  incipient  deteriora- 
tion and  the  beginnings,  if  neglected,  of  more 
serious  disease.  The  cause  is  malnutrition,  insani- 
tary surroundings,  all  those  depressing  influences  in 
which  the  children  of  the  poor  are  brought  up. 
The  cure  is  fresh  air,  good  food,  healthy  exercise 
of  mind  and  body  ;  the  remedy  is  almost  certain  in 
its  effect,  but  to  the  poor  child  quite  unattainable. 
No  medicine  prescribed  by  a  school  doctor  will  be 
of  much  benefit  so  long  as  the  causes  which  pro- 
duced the  mischief  continue  to  exist ;  but  the  con- 
dition of  children  affected  with  disease  of  the  glands 
affords  a  text  on  which  an  official  visitor  who  repre- 
sents the  school  authority  may  enlarge  in  visiting 
the  child's  home,  and  may  be  the  means  of  stirring 
up  the  sanitary  authority  to  action  and  the  parents 
to  such  efforts  for  improvement  as  their  poverty 
may  admit  of.  The  progress  of  such  children 
should  be  watched  by  the  teacher  and  by  the  nurse 
or  doctor  at  each  visit  to  the  school.  In  bad  cases, 
where  the  diseased  glands  are  developing  into 
serious  disease  such  as  deafness  or  tuberculosis,  it 
would  be,  of  course,  much  more  economical  as  well 
as  more  humane  for  society  to  take  the  case  in  hand 
in  time  and  remove  the  child  before  it  is  too  late 


CHILDREN'S    AILMENTS  111 

from  its  unhealthy  surroundings.  Several  of  the 
medical  witnesses  before  the  Committee  on  Physical 
Deterioration  advocated  the  establishment  of  special 
schools  for  backward  and  ailing  children,  where 
better  conditions  and  a  generous  diet  could  be 
secured  which  would  soon  make  them  sound ;  but 
the  bugbear  of  undermining  parental  responsibility 
frightened  others.  In  Germany,  where  the  State 
takes  more  care  of  children  and  where  the  taxpayers 
are  more  alive  to  true  economy,  such  schools  are 
common.  In  a  subsequent  chapter  some  details 
are  given  of  one  of  these — the  Forest  School  at 
Charlottenburg. 

Adenoids 

One  of  the  commonest  forms  of  glandular  disease 
is  what  is  called  "adenoids,"  which  is  enlargement 
of  the  glandular  tissue  at  the  back  of  the  nose.  Some 
children  are  born  with  it :  it  is  prevalent  in  all  classes 
of  society,  rich  as  well  as  poor.  It  produces  mouth- 
breathing  with  all  its  attendant  evils,  contracted 
chest,  and  stunted  growth.  It  is  a  very  common 
cause  of  deafness.  For  this  common  disease  there  is 
one  remedy  and  one  remedy  only — the  removal  by 
a  surgical  operation  of  the  adenoids.  The  medical 
inspector  would  at  once  diagnose  the  presence  of 
adenoids  in  the  noses  of  scores  of  children.  The 
cost  of  the  remedial  operation,  simple  as  it  is,  is 
beyond  the  means  of  most  poor  parents.  Would 
it  undermine  parental  responsibility,  would  it  be  a 


112     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

reckless  plunge  into  Socialism  if  the  State  were  to 
undertake  the  cost  of  removing  adenoids  ?  There 
would  be  no  temptation  to  the  thriftless  parent  to 
indulge  unduly  in  this  cheap  public  luxury.  The 
gain  from  the  public  outlay  would  be  that  of  the 
community  at  large,  which  would  escape  a  great 
deal  of  subsequent  expenditure  upon  deafness  and 
other  diseases  by  the  performance  of  this  safe  and 
simple  operation  upon  all  children  who  stood  in 
need  of  it.  It  would  be  an  act  of  justice  to  the 
children,  who  are  entitled  to  proper  care  as  well  as 
maintenance. 


Tubercle 

Tubercle  is  a  deadly  and  dangerous  disease,  very 
common  amongst  neglected,  ill-nourished  children. 
It  is  generally  considered  now  not  to  be  hereditary, 
as  was  formerly  supposed,  but  to  be  produced  by  a 
definite  microbe,  against  the  ravages  of  which  pre- 
cautions may  be  taken,  although  a  condition  of  the 
mucous  membrane  favourable  to  the  reception  and 
propagation  of  the  microbe  may  be  inherited.  In 
its  early  stages,  and  especially  in  a  child  patient,  it 
is  considered  to  be  almost  always  curable  :  fresh  air, 
cleanliness,  and  good  food  are  the  medicines.  But 
if  neglected  it  becomes  tabes  mesenterica  in  the  child 
or  phthisis  in  the  adult,  and  is  certainly  fatal ;  and 
during  all  the  time  that  the  patient  continues  to  live 
he  is  shedding  infection  about  him  and  risking  the 
lives  of  others.     There  are  probably  few  schools  in 


CHILDREN'S    AILMENTS  113 

the  land,  elementary  or  secondary,  in  which  there 
are  not  children  suffering  from  this  terrible  disease, 
unsuspected  by  parents  or  teachers  but  capable  of 
certain  detection  by  a  medical  expert.  Merely  to 
ascertain  the  fact  that  there  are  such  children  in  a 
school  is  of  little  use  unless  public  authority  is  pre- 
pared to  go  further.  Such  children  ought,  if  the 
disease  has  reached  an  infectious  stage,  to  be  segre- 
gated from  the  rest  just  as  much  as  smallpox 
patients.  They  should  receive  prompt  treatment  in 
fresh-air  hospitals,  and  could  in  nearly  all  cases  be 
quickly  restored  to  their  friends  freed  from  the 
terrible  danger  to  which  they  have  been  exposed 
and  from  the  risk  which  association  with  them 
causes  to  their  comrades.  If  this  matter  were  pro- 
perly understood  and  appreciated  by  the  richer 
classes  no  fear  of  undermining  parental  responsi- 
bility would  be  allowed  to  stand  in  the  way  of 
energetic  action  for  stamping  out  this  fatal  disease. 
It  spares  no  class  of  society  and  causes  in  this 
country  one-half  the  deaths  of  those  who  perish  in 
the  prime  of  life,  between  25  and  35  years  of  age  ; 
it  is  Nature's  visitation  of  the  rich  to  punish  them 
for  their  neglect ;  the  former  might  be  free  from 
consumption  if  they  were  not  infected  by  the  poor. 

Heart  Disease 

A  diseased  condition  of  the  heart  is  very  com- 
monly found  amongst  young  children  in  the  schools. 
Taken  in  time  and  treated  while  the  organs  of  the 


m     THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  NATION 

body  are  still  capable  of  vigorous  growth,  it  is  in 
some  cases  curable,  and  with  proper  precautions 
its  fatal  progress  can  be  to  some  extent  arrested. 
But  it  is  an  ailment  that  neither  parent  nor  teacher 
is  likely  to  discover ;  it  requires  the  examination  of 
an  expert.  Children  who  are  suffering  from  any 
affection  of  the  heart  are  quite  unfit  to  go  through 
the  ordinary  physical  exercises  of  the  school ;  all 
bodily  strain  is  highly  dangerous ;  cases  have  been 
found  in  which  such  children  were  performing 
gymnastic  exercises,  in  the  course  of  which  they 
might  at  any  moment  have  dropped  down  dead. 
If  there  was  no  other  ground  on  which  to  require 
medical  inspection  of  school  children,  the  absolute 
necessity  for  children  to  pass  the  doctor  before 
being  allowed  to  perform  some  of  the  physical 
exercises  prescribed  in  the  school  course  would  of 
itself  furnish  one.  In  Prussia,  where  all  children 
are  examined  medically  during  their  school  life,  a 
number  of  children  in  every  school  are  forbidden  to 
take  part  in  the  gymnastic  exercises  ;  in  our  schools, 
where  no  such  precaution  is  taken,  there  must  be 
thousands  of  children  who,  unsuspected  by  teacher 
or  parent,  are  daily  aggravating  the  mischief  which 
diagnosis  and  remedial  treatment  might  cure  or  at 
least  mitigate. 

Rickets 

Rickets  is  a  disease  of  infancy  which  has  usually 
laid   hold  of  the  child    before   it   comes   into   the 


CHILDREN'S    AILMENTS  115 

elementary  school.  It  makes  its  first  appearance 
from  six  to  twelve  months  after  birth.  The  direct 
cause  of  this  disease  is  bad  feeding.  M  When  there 
is  bad  feeding,"  says  Dr.  Ashby,  of  Manchester, 
"  or  when  there  is  indigestion,  the  digestive  process 
goes  wrong,  and  certain  toxins  or  deleterious 
substances  are  formed  in  the  stomach  and  intestines, 
and  these  are  absorbed  into  the  blood.  Sweating 
is  one  of  the  first  signs,  later  the  formation  of  the 
bones  and  muscles  are  interfered  with  and  nutrition 
generally."  Children  who  suffer  from  rickets  in 
infancy  come  to  school  undersized,  and  often 
already  deformed.  In  bad  cases,  where  no  remedial 
treatment  is  applied,  the  deformity  may  last  for  life, 
but  up  to  seven  years  there  is  hope  of  recovery. 
Dr.  Hall,  in  Leeds,  found  50  per  cent,  of  the 
children  in  a  poor  Gentile  school  suffering  from 
rickets  ;  in  a  poor  Jewish  school,  7  per  cent.  ;  and 
in  the  good  schools,  frequented  by  the  children  of 
well-to-do  artizans,  8  per  cent.  During  the  year 
1903  at  the  Manchester  Hospital  901  infants  and 
young  children  were  admitted  as  out-patients, 
suffering  from  rickets  in  the  early  stages  ;  and  in 
addition  to  them  539,  mostly  children  over  3  or 
4  years  of  age,  were  admitted  for  various 
deformities,  as  knock-knees  and  bow  legs,  the 
result  of  rickets.  The  disease  is  much  more 
prevalent  in  the  north  of  England  than  in  the 
south.  Dr.  Ashby  examined  in  Manchester  750 
school  children,  who  were  selected  for  examination 
because  of  their  inability  to  learn  in  class.    Eighteen 


116     THE    CHILDREN    OP    THE    NATION 

were  suffering  from  marked  rickety  deformities, 
being  much  undersized,  with  knock-knees  and  flat 
feet,  while  their  mental  status  was  much  less  than 
that  of  average  children,  in  spite  of  their  having 
attended  school.  They  were  not  only  backward, 
but  had  dull  brains.  Many  of  the  others  were  of 
poor  physique,  with  curved  or  limp  spines  and  flat 
feet,  due  to  rickets.  "  I  do  not  wish  to  say,"  adds 
Dr.  Ashby,  "  that  there  were  only  eighteen  of  these 
suffering  from  rickets,  because  I  could  see  traces  of 
rickets  in  a  large  number  of  them,  but  these  were 
bond  fide  dwarfs."  If  these  rickety  children  were 
picked  out  by  medical  inspection  when  they  first 
came  to  school,  and  a  diet  of  good  food  secured  for 
them,  a  great  number  would  be  cured  of  the 
mischief  done  to  them  in  the  early  years  of  life  and 
might  grow  up  healthy  men  and  women. 

Eyes 

Defective  vision  arises  from  two  causes,  quite 
separate  and  distinct — (i)  disease,  and  (2)  defective 
construction  of  the  eye.  The  various  forms  of 
ophthalmia  are  nothing  like  so  prevalent  in  the 
elementary  schools  as  they  are  in  the  Poor  Law 
schools,  though  the  class  of  children  is  much 
the  same  in  both,  and  those  in  the  latter  are 
much  better  fed  and  cared  for.  It  is  the  much 
closer  association  in  dormitories  and  lavatories  in 
boarding  schools,  where  large  numbers  of  children 
are   assembled,  that   causes   any  outbreak   of  eye 


CHILDREN'S    AILMENTS  117 

disease  to  become  epidemic.  Many  children  in 
slum  schools  suffer  from  blight  and  sore  eyelids, 
but  the  disease  does  not  seem  to  spread.  In  the 
Glasgow  school  examined  by  Dr.  Scott,  the  certify- 
ing factory  surgeon  in  Glasgow,  there  were  25 
children  suffering — 2*92  per  cent,  of  the  whole 
school.  Very  simple  remedies,  which  teacher  or 
nurses  can  apply,  seem  to  be  sufficient  to  stop 
eye  disease  in  its  early  stages.  Defective  vision 
which  arises  from  optical  defects  is  prevalent  in 
all  schools  frequented  by  the  children  of  rich 
and  poor.  There  are  no  data,  from  which  any 
just  opinion  can  be  formed  as  to  whether  bad 
sight  from  this  cause  is  on  the  increase  or  not. 
Children's  eyesight  of  late  years  has  received 
much  attention,  and  two  facts  seem  to  be  estab- 
lished :  first,  that  a  great  number  of  children  come 
to  school  with  good  sight  but  become  short-sighted 
during  the  school  period,  and  secondly,  that  this 
defect  is  aggravated,  if  not  caused,  by  the  treat- 
ment which  they  receive  while  under  instruction. 
Defective  eyesight  is  now  generally  known  to  be  a 
cause  of  headache,  and  children's  eyes  are  therefore 
better  looked  after  by  their  parents,  whereas 
formerly  no  connection  between  the  two  was  sus- 
pected. There  is  evidence  both  from  the  Census 
and  the  statistics  of  the  London  School  Board, 
that  in  recent  years  blindness  and  deafness  have 
decreased,  both  amongst  the  general  population 
and  amongst  school  children.  There  is  still, 
however,  an  enormous  amount  of  defective  vision 


118     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

amongst  school  children  which  urgently  demands 
attention.  In  the  Dundee  examination,  very  nearly 
half  those  examined  had  defects  of  the  eyes  of  one 
kind  or  another,  more  than  half  of  the  girls  and 
less  than  half  of  the  boys.  Similar  results  have 
been  obtained  by  inspection  in  other  schools. 
That  a  number  of  these  defects  are  caused  by 
school  work,  and  that  we  might  reasonably  expect 
girls  to  be  worse  than  boys,  admits  of  little  doubt. 
Dr.  Kerr,  Medical  Officer  to  the  London  School 
Board,  who  tested  the  eyes  of  more  than  a 
thousand  children  in  the  London  schools  with  great 
care  and  trouble  three  times  over  says  :  "  The 
method  of  the  usual  infant  teaching  is  much  too 
fine  in  hand  and  eye  adjustments  required,  and 
leads  to  nervous  strain  as  a  routine  part  of  educa- 
tion at  this  age,  and  to  permanent  habits  of  close 
eye  work  with  stoop  and  contracted  chest.  The 
work  expected  from  young  children  is  also  of  too 
accurate  a  nature,  95  per  cent,  between  the  ages  of 
6  and  6 J  managed  to  get  normal  visual  acuity 
in  London ;  whilst  in  the  standards  10  per  cent, 
are  found  with  vision  not  exceeding  two-thirds 
normal.  The  conditions  which  exist  in  infant 
schools  are  fatal  to  the  eyesight.  The  majority  of 
children  go  through  them  without  much  danger,  but 
any  children  who  have  a  tendency  to  weak  sight 
are  sure  to  succumb.  The  conditions  are  bad  for 
infants'  eyesight  in  every  way ;  the  work  is  too 
fine."  Dr.  Kerr  is  of  opinion  that  teachers  should 
refuse  to  set  infants  to  do  fine  work,  but  let  them 


CHILDREN'S    AILMENTS  119 

go  to  the  blackboard  and  do  coarse  work.  One 
common  employment  for  the  youngest  children  in 
infant  schools  is  to  thread  needles  ;  this  exercise  is 
often  kept  up  for  as  long  as  twenty  minutes.  The 
infants  are  quiet,  while  their  eyes  are  being 
destroyed.  In  most  country  schools,  and  in  many 
of  the  older  town  schools  very  insufficient  attention 
is  paid  to  the  light.  Children  are  constantly  set  in 
the  full  glare  of  the  window,  facing  it :  in  other 
schools  they  work  with  insufficient  light  in  dark 
corners  ;  both  extremes  are  injurious  to  eyesight. 
It  is  a  common  practice  to  strain  the  children's 
eyesight  by  using  blue  or  red  instead  of  white  chalk 
on  the  blackboard.  Sufficient  attention  is  not 
always  paid  to  the  place  in  which  a  child  is  sitting. 
The  teacher  lectures  upon  the  blackboard  with 
many  of  the  scholars  right  out  at  the  side,  where 
they  either  cannot  see  at  all  or  see  only  very 
imperfectly.  Straining  the  eyes  is  very  bad, 
besides  the  risk  of  being  caned  for  not  seeing 
something  which  is  beyond  their  visual  powers.  If 
medical  experts  looked  into  some  of  these  matters, 
as  well  as  into  the  eyes  of  the  children,  a  good 
many  practices  injurious  to  eyesight  would  be 
reformed.  Any  examination  of  the  eyes  of  school 
children  will  result  in  the  prescription  of  many  pairs 
of  spectacles.  Whence  are  these  to  be  procured? 
It  is  undoubtedly  the  duty  of  a  parent,  according  to 
existing  law,  to  provide  his  child  with  spectacles,  if 
necessary,  as  well  as  with  food  and  clothes.  But 
the  cost  of  spectacles  is  a  serious  charge  upon  a 


120     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

family  which  is  barely  able  to  earn  enough  to  pay 
the  rent,  and  feed  and  clothe  the  family.  If  any 
charitable  body  will  in  any  district  undertake  to 
provide  for  those  who  cannot  provide  for  them- 
selves, well  and  good  :  it  is  I  suppose  a  charity 
as  unlikely  to  pauperise  or  undermine  parental 
responsibility  as  any  that  can  be  imagined.  But 
if  there  is  no  charitable  agency  to  step  in,  spectacles 
should  be  provided  at  the  public  expense  as  part 
of  the  cost  of  education.  The  child's  education 
cannot  go  on  without  them,  except  at  the  risk  of 
permanent  danger  to  the  eyes  ;  it  is  the  interest 
of  the  public  that  its  education  should  not  be 
discontinued,  nor  its  eyes  damaged. 

Ears 

il  Adenoids,"  says  Mr.  Cheatle,  the  aural  surgeon, 
M  are  one  of  the  greatest  causes  of  deafness." 
Remove  them,  as  before  suggested,  and  you  will 
remove  a  great  deal  of  deafness  now  existing  in 
elementary  schools,  and  save  the  cost  of  more 
expensive  treatment.  Defective  hearing  is  thus 
much  more  easily  and  cheaply  dealt  with  than 
defective  eyesight,  which  is  not  so  closely  connected 
with  the  child's  general  health.  On  the  other  hand, 
deafness  exercises  a  much  more  baneful  effect  on 
the  general  mental  condition  of  the  child  than 
defective  eyesight.  Mr.  Cheatle  says  :  "  There  is 
a  marked  difference  intellectually  between  those 
who  are  deaf  and  those  who  are  not."     It  is   not 


CHILDREN'S    AILMENTS  121 

only  that  deaf  children  do  not  receive  and  appre- 
hend the  same  number  of  external  impressions  that 
normal  children  do.  "  It  is  more  than  that.  They 
are  dull  mentally,  as  well  as  unable  to  receive 
stimuli."  Besides  deafness  there  are  discharges 
from  the  ears  which  are  specially  dangerous  to 
health  and  life.  "  It  is  due,"  says  Mr.  Cheatle, 
"to  invasion  of  the  middle  ear  by  a  specific 
organism,  that  is  to  say,  the  poison  gets  into  the 
middle  ear  behind  the  drum,  from  the  back  of  the 
nose.  It  is  a  very  common  result  of  scarlet  fever, 
diphtheria,  measles,  and  small-pox,  but  a  common 
cold  will  set  it  up,  and  if  neglected,  a  certain 
number  of  lives  will  be  lost."  In  the  examination 
of  the  Edinburgh  schools,  some  40  per  cent,  of  the 
children  had  diseases  of  the  ear  more  or  less 
serious  ;  in  Dundee  it  was  44  per  cent.  Attention 
to  general  health,  and  removal  of  adenoids  would 
produce  an  immediate  and  signal  improvement  in 
the  hearing  of  children.  How  many  boys  and  girls 
are  daily  caned  for  not  having  heard  something 
they  cannot  hear,  as  well  as  for  not  seeing  some- 
thing they  cannot  see,  it  is  impossible  to  estimate. 

Teeth 

The  British  Dental  Association  made,  a  short 
time  ago,  an  investigation  into  the  teeth  of  school 
children  by  properly  qualified  practitioners  to 
acquire  a  more  exact  knowledge  of  the  condition 
of  children's  teeth  at  various  ages,  and  to  show  the 


122     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

disabilities  under  which  they  suffer  in  their  health 
and  development  by  reason  of  the  condition  of 
their  teeth.  They  examined  upwards  of  10,500 
boys  and  girls  from  Industrial  Schools,  Training 
Ships,  National  and  Board  Schools,  &c,  and  found 
amongst  them  only  1,508  sets  of  teeth  free  from 
decay,  or  14*2  per  cent.  There  were  upwards  of 
37,000  unsound  teeth  in  the  mouths  of  those 
examined.  This  result  may  be  taken  as  typical 
of  the  condition  of  the  teeth  of  the  poorer  classes 
in  Great  Britain  :  the  healthy  teeth  and  mouths 
were  as  fairly  tabulated  as  the  unhealthy.  It 
appears  from  these  tables  that  decay  .begins  at 
a  very  early  age,  before  4,  that  there  is  a  rapid 
increase  from  bad  to  worse  in  the  decayed  sets  with 
each  year  of  life,  and  that  the  inevitable  fate  of 
such  sets  in  the  course  of  years,  unless  controlled 
by  treatment  during  childhood,  is  to  become  very 
bad,  i.e.,  nine  or  more  of  the  permanent  teeth  are 
decayed,  extracted,  or  dropped  out.  British  skulls 
in  the  museum  of  the  Royal  College  of  Surgeons 
show  that  dental  caries,  in  skulls  of  ancient  date, 
was  almost  entirely  absent,  and,  where  present,  it 
was  trifling  in  extent.  Skulls  of  modern  date  show 
evidence  of  dental  caries  to  a  considerable  extent. 
During  the  Boer  war  more  than  three  thousand 
men  were  invalided  home  on  account  of  defective 
teeth,  and  that  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  dentists 
were  sent  out  to  attend  the  troops  in  the  field,  and 
that  local  dentists  were  employed  at  the  base. 
Hospital  statistics   show  that  a  largely   increasing 


CHILDREN'S    AILMENTS  123 

number  of  patients  require  to  be  referred  to  the 
dental  departments.  There  is  also  a  largely 
increasing  number  of  patients  suffering  from 
diseases  of  the  stomach,  and  from  other  affections 
due  to  bad  teeth.  The  rejection  of  recruits  due  to 
bad  teeth  has  increased  fivefold  in  the  twelve  years 
1 891-1902.  With  these  facts  before  us,  it  is 
obviously  desirable  that  the  children  in  the  public 
elementary  schools  should  be  looked  after  by  public 
authority,  and  parents  instructed  in  the  value  and 
care  of  their  children's  teeth. 

Infectious  Disease 

If  proper  precautions  were  taken  in  the  homes, 
by  the  visitation  of  competent  and  responsible 
visitors,  and  by  providing  easy  access  in  suspicious 
cases  to  medical  advice,  it  should  be  a  rare  thing 
for  any  case  of  infectious  disease  to  find  its  way 
into  public  elementary  schools.  Such  cases  under 
our  present  lack  of  system  are  only  too  frequent, 
and  constitute  a  terrible  public  danger,  and  a  source 
of  great  public  expense.  It  is  impossible  to  guard 
against  them  by  the  inspection  of  doctors  and 
nurses  alone,  however  frequent  may  be  the  visits 
paid  by  these  to  the  school.  The  only  remedy  is 
to  be  found  in  the  institution  of  proper  care  and 
attention  to  symptoms  in  the  children's  homes,  and 
in  constant  vigilance  on  the  part  of  the  teacher. 
Every  class  should  be  examined  daily  by  its 
teacher,  just  as  men  in  the  Army  or  Navy  are 
examined  daily  by  their  officers.     The  local  health 


124     THE    CHILDREN    OF   THE    NATION 

officer  could  easily  frame  circulars  for  teachers, 
giving  them  the  symptoms  of  the  various  infectious 
diseases,  and  any  child  which  exhibited  them  should 
at  once  be  segregated  from  the  rest  and  sent  off  to 
the  nearest  dispensary  or  hospital.  Nothing  can  be 
done  in  the  homes  of  the  children,  until  the  practice 
of  the  Poor  Law  officials,  to  which  the  attention  of 
the  reader  has  been  already  called,  has  been  entirely 
altered  and  parents  encouraged  to  seek  medical 
advice,  whenever  they  have  reason  to  suspect 
infectious  disease,  or  until  some  better  system  of 
affording  medical  aid  to  the  poor  has  replaced  the 
clumsy  and  antiquated  methods  of  the  Poor  Law. 
What  this  system  should  be  I  propose  to  discuss  in 
the  next  chapter. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


MEDICAL   AID 


Existing  Provision 

MEDICAL  aid  embraces  diagnosis  by  a  quali- 
fied practitioner,  medicines,  surgical  and 
medical  appliances,  special  diet,  and  the  care  of 
serious  cases,  unfit  for  domestic  treatment,  in  a 
hospital.  All  these  are  well  and  sufficiently  pro- 
vided in  our  country  for  those  who  can  afford  to 
pay  for  them.  The  nursing  homes  and  the  paying 
wards  of  hospitals  give  the  rich  the  opportunity 
of  hospital  treatment,  not  so  complete  perhaps  as 
can  be  obtained  in  most  foreign  countries,  but 
adequate,  and  no  doubt  destined  in  the  near 
future  to  considerable  improvement  and  develop- 
ment. But  the  great  mass  of  the  people,  who  can 
ill  afford  to  pay  the  great  expense  which  serious 
illness  involves,  are  very  meagrely  provided  with 
medical  aid.  There  are  first  of  all  the  destitute, 
who  cannot  even  defray  the  normal  cost  of  living 
for  themselves  and  their  families  ;  then  there  are 
those  who,  under  ordinary  circumstances,  as  long 
as  everything  goes  well,  can  just  keep  their  heads 


125 


126     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

above  water,  but  whom  sickness  in  their  family 
must,  in  the  absence  of  extraneous  aid,  promptly 
submerge ;  and  lastly,  there  are  the  prosperous 
and  well-paid  workers  ;  of  these  some  have  made 
provision  against  sickness,  and  some  have  not  ; 
to  these  latter  improvident  persons  the  arrival  of 
sickness  means  their  reduction  from  prosperity  to 
adversity  and  even  destitution.  For  these  classes, 
who  constitute  the  overwhelming  majority  of  the 
population,  it  is  desirable,  in  the  interests  of  public 
health,  that  better  provision  should  be  made, 
especially  for  their  children.  Otherwise  all  the 
medical  inspection  and  care  suggested  in  the 
previous  chapters  becomes  of  none  effect,  and 
the  physical  improvement  of  the  growing  genera- 
tion cannot  be  attained.  The  present  public  pro- 
vision of  medical  aid  for  those  unable,  when 
the  need  arises,  to  pay  for  it  themselves,  consists 
(i)  of  workhouse  infirmaries  established  under  the 
Poor  Law  and  controlled  by  the  Boards  of  Guar- 
dians ;  (2)  of  charitable  hospitals  and  dispensaries 
maintained  by  voluntary  subscriptions,  entirely 
exempt  from  public  control,  and  having  no  support 
out  of  public  funds ;  (3)  of  friendly  societies,  sick 
clubs,  and  those  trade  unions  which  give  aid  in 
sickness ;  and  (4)  of  municipal  hospitals  which  re- 
strict their  aid  not  by  law  but  by  practice  to  certain 
kinds  of  infectious  disease.  Nothing  like  the  muni- 
cipal hospitals  which  are  to  be  found  in  almost 
every  Continental  city  exist  in  our  country.  In 
these   every   citizen  is   entitled    to   medical    care ; 


MEDICAL    AID  127 

and  those  only  who  are  able  to  pay  are  required 
to  do  so. 

Workhouse  Infirmaries 

Workhouse  infirmaries  have  in  recent  years  been 
greatly  improved.  Formerly  most  of  them  were 
wholly  unfit  for  the  reception  and  care  of  the 
sick.  The  buildings  were  insanitary,  and  kept  in 
a  condition  of  dirt,  the  nurses  were  old  incapable 
paupers,  the  medical  staff  was  insufficient  and  some- 
times inefficient,  medicines  and  invalid  diet  were 
parsimoniously  provided ;  the  great  object  was  to 
save  the  rates  and  let  the  inmate  of  the  infirmary 
die  without  public  scandal.  Some  of  these  old- 
fashioned  infirmaries  doubtless  linger  still  in 
benighted  places,  but  great  reforms  have  taken 
place  of  late  years,  and  many  of  the  workhouse 
infirmaries  compare  favourably  with  the  best 
hospitals ;  sanitary  improvements  and  cleanliness 
have  been  introduced,  trained  nurses  are  ex- 
clusively employed,  the  medical  staff  is  of  first- 
rate  quality,  and  everything  that  is  ordered  by 
them  for  the  patients  is  at  once  supplied.  These 
infirmaries  are  intended,  according  to  law,  for 
the  destitute  only — that  is,  for  those  who  are 
unable  to  pay  for  the  hospital  treatment  which 
their  condition  demands.  But  children,  whose 
parents  from  any  cause  whatever,  whether  from 
poverty  or  neglect,  fail  to  provide  medical  aid 
are  therefore  M  destitute,"  and  are  by  law  entitled 
to  partake  of  the   public   medical   aid,   which   the 


128     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

Guardians  are,  by  the  Poor  Law,  under  an  obligation 
to  provide.  But  in  this,  as  in  so  many  other 
particulars,  children  have,  by  the  governing  class, 
been  robbed  of  their  just  rights,  and  the  administra- 
tion of  the  law  by  Boards  of  Guardians  has  too  well 
succeeded  in  preventing  parents  from  claiming  their 
children's  rights,  and  in  abandoning  them  to  struggle 
through  their  illnesses  not  in  a  well-ordered  in- 
firmary, but  in  the  misery  of  a  slum  house.  It  is 
to  no  purpose  that  in  recent  statutes  the  principle 
has  been  that  medical  relief  does  not  pauperise. 
The  Guardians  declare  that  it  does,  and  make  the 
law  of  none  effect  by  their  administration.  The 
medical  inspection  of  schools,  and  the  visitation 
of  the  homes  of  the  poor  by  persons  accredited 
by  public  authority,  would  bring  to  light  a  vast 
amount  of  medical  aid  of  which  the  children  of 
the  poor  stand  urgently  in  need.  This  the  Boards 
of  Guardians,  so  long  as  the  physical  care  of 
children  is  left  in  their  hands,  would  have  to  take 
measures  to  supply.  It  is  especially  desirable  that 
better  provision  should  be  made  for  the  treatment 
of  children  suffering  from  certain  infectious  diseases. 
Measles  is  by  far  the  most  fatal  disease  of  child- 
hood amongst  the  poor.  It  is  not  so  amongst  the 
rich,  because  their  children  are  in  illness  better 
cared  for.  In  Germany,  all  children  suffering  from 
diphtheria,  scarlatina,  measles,  whooping-cough,  &c, 
are  sent  to  hospital  and  treated  in  separate  wards. 
Small-pox  is  a  disease  unknown  in  Germany.  In 
Great    Britain  it  is  only  a  certain  limited  class  of 


MEDICAL    AID  129 

infectious  diseases  that  is  in  practice  treated  in 
hospitals  at  the  public  expense,  and  in  this  class 
measles  is  not  included.  Children  are  by  law, 
however,  entitled  to  the  public  care  in  all  their 
diseases,  in  default  of  being  properly  cared  for  by 
their  parents.  If  the  law  were  effectively  carried 
out,  children's  epidemics  and  children's  deaths 
would  be  greatly  diminished.  The  Boards  of 
Guardians  should  establish  children's  wards  in 
their  infirmaries  for  cases  fit  for  hospital  treat- 
ment. They  might  also  organise  public  dis- 
pensaries, at  which  medicines,  special  diet,  and 
medical  or  surgical  appliances,  ordered  by  the 
school  doctors,  could  be  obtained. 


Charitable  Hospitals 

Hospitals  are  a  good  example  of  the  attempt  to 
discharge  by  private  charitable  enterprise  functions 
which  properly  belong  to  the  State,  but  which  the 
State  has  neglected  to  perform.  Every  Sanitary 
authority  under  the  Public  Health  Acts  has 
power  to  establish  and  maintain  general  hospitals 
for  the  sick.  It  is  their  neglect  to  exercise  this 
power  that  obliges  charity  to  step  in  :  the  partial 
occupation  of  the  ground  by  charity,  affords  an 
excuse  to  the  State  for  continuing  its  neglect ; 
and  thus  we  revolve  indefinitely  in  a  vicious  circle, 
from  which  there  is  apparently  no  outlet.  In 
nearly  every  other  country  the  establishment  of 
public  hospitals,  for  all  the  inhabitants  of  a  town 


130     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

or  district,  is  regarded  as  one  of  the  most  necessary 
and  important  functions  of  the  Municipal  Authority, 
and  such  a  scandal  as  that  which  has  occurred  at 
St.  Mary's,  Paddington,  where  a  new  wing,  built 
by  voluntary  subscriptions,  cannot  be  opened  for 
patients  for  lack  of  funds,  would  be  impossible. 
To  hospitals  in  Germany  every  citizen,  nay  every 
foreigner,  resident  in  the  city  for  the  time  being, 
is  entitled,  on  medical  recommendation,  to  admission. 
If  he  can  pay  he  is  required  to  do  so — in  Berlin  the 
charge  is  about  3s*.  6d.  a  day — if  he  cannot,  he 
is  treated  gratuitously.  In  most  places  all  patients 
are  treated  alike — sickness  is  regarded  as  a 
democratic  leveller  of  all  social  distinctions — but 
in  some  hospitals  there  are  higher  classes,  to  which 
admission  is  obtained  by  extra  payment,  and  in 
which  superior  comforts,  but  not  better  medical 
treatment,  are  to  be  obtained.  The  class  for  which 
charitable  hospitals  provide  is  an  ambiguous  and 
uncertain  one.  The  authorities  of  a  hospital  have 
only  a  secondary  interest  in  the  domestic  condition 
of  their  patients  ;  they  have  far  too  many  other,  and 
to  them  more  important,  matters  to  attend  to,  to 
waste  much  time  in  either  investigating  the  economic 
condition  of  those  who  occupy  their  beds  and 
frequent  their  out-patient  rooms ;  it  is  not  possible 
for  them  to  make  any  attempt  to  obtain  payment 
for  the  services  they  have  rendered.  They  there- 
fore pay  little  regard  to  anything  but  the  physical 
condition  of  those  with  whom  they  have  to  deal. 
First  of  all  they  have  the  great  question  of  ways 


MEDICAL    AID  131 

and  means  to  attend  to.  There  is  not,  I  suppose,  a 
hospital  in  Great  Britain  whose  usefulness  is  not 
impaired  by  lack  of  funds ;  and  a  great  part  of  the 
time  and  thought  of  the  managers  of  a  British 
hospital  is  taken  up  with  the  vital  question  of  how 
to  provide  the  funds,  which  the  managers  of  a 
German  or  French  hospital  obtain  from  public 
sources  without  trouble  on  their  part.  Then  they 
have  to  pay  attention  to  the  real  purpose  for  which 
the  British  hospital  primarily  exists — to  be  a  school 
of  medicine  and  surgery  for  students  seeking 
admission  to  the  medical  profession,  and  for  the 
women  who  qualify  themselves  there  for  the  nursing 
profession.  It  is  the  received  principle  that  hospital 
patients  should  be  above  the  destitute  class,  which 
has  in  sickness  to  seek  relief  from  the  Poor  Law, 
and  below  the  class  which  is  able  to  pay  for  private 
medical  attendance.  But  no  serious  attempt  has 
ever  been  made  to  delimit  the  class,  or  to  see  that 
the  patients  received  belong  to  it.  The  physical 
condition  of  the  applicant  is  the  point  most  re- 
garded. A  millionaire  or  a  pauper,  who  had  sus- 
tained some  rare  and  interesting  fracture,  would  be 
received  with  the  warmest  welcome,  not  for  his 
riches  or  poverty  but  from  the  nature  of  his  accident : 
a  man,  rich  or  poor,  suffering  from  some  mere 
vulgar  ailment  would  be  treated,  if  at  all,  without 
much  interest  or  concern.  Many  enjoy  the 
advantage  of  hospital  treatment  gratis,  who  could 
well  afford  to  pay  ;  and  some,  it  is  alleged,  disguise 
themselves  as  poor  persons  in  order  to  obtain  it  : 


132      THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

many  who  cannot  afford  seek  admission  in  vain. 
As  a  provision  for  the  requisite  medical  aid  for  the 
nation,  hospitals  do  not  cover  the  ground.  They 
perform  their  work  excellently  in  the  case  of  those 
whom  they  treat ;  but  there  is  a  large  class  of 
people  left  out  in  the  cold,  whom  the  hospital  treat- 
ment established  by  private  enterprise  does  not 
reach. 


Friendly   Societies 

Voluntary  clubs  and  societies  in  Great  Britain 
which  undertake  to  give  relief  to  their  members 
in  sickness,  exhibit  every  possible  variety  in  the 
contributions  they  require,  the  benefits  they 
promise,  and  their  capacity  to  fulfil  their  contract 
with  their  members.  Provision  for  old  age  and 
invalidity  is  undertaken  by  many,  in  addition  to 
provision  for  sickness.  These  friendly  societies 
play  a  very  great  part  in  the  provision  of  medical 
aid  for  the  people  of  Great  Britain.  They  have 
as  many  as  6,000,000  members,  and  hold  property 
for  the  fulfilment  of  their  obligations  to  the  sick 
and  aged  amounting  to  upwards  of  ^40,000,000. 
They  are  grouped  into  Orders  with  fantastic  names, 
quaint  ceremonies,  and  mediaeval  costumes,  the 
United  Order  of  Oddfellows,  the  Ancient  Order 
of  Foresters,  the  Ancient  Shepheards,  the  Order 
of  Druids,  the  Order  of  Buffaloes,  and  so  on. 
But  each  Order  has  numerous  branches,  conducted 
according  to  the  general  regulations  of  the  Order 


UNSVfcKOl  I  T 


MEDICAL    AID  133 

but  financially  independent.  All  these  branches 
are  not  actuarially  solvent,  but  efforts  have  been 
made  of  late  years  to  bring  them  all  to  a  standard 
of  complete  solvency,  with  great  success  ;  and  as 
there  is  generally  a  power  to  make  a  levy  in 
case  of  emergency  on  the  members,  no  worker 
who  insures  in  any  of  those  old-established  societies 
runs  any  risk  of  being  left  in  the  lurch  in  time 
of  sickness.  Accounts  are  regularly  audited  by 
public  auditors.  As  a  specimen  of  these  Orders, 
the  Ancient  Order  of  Foresters  has  923,662 
members,  and  funds  amounting  to  more  than 
,£8,000,000.  It  has  4,838  branches,  and  embraces 
in  its  membership  both  women  and  children. 
During  one  year  it  paid  sick  pay  to  184,387 
members,  who  received  an  average  allowance  per 
member  for  51*42  days.  It  does  business  in  life 
assurance  and  old  age  pensions.  It  held  its  annual 
'•High  Court"  in  1905,  in  the  Town  Hall  at 
Newcastle-upon-Tyne,  which  was  presided  over  by 
the  "  High  Chief  Ranger."  Addresses  of  welcome 
were  presented  by  the  Mayor  and  Sheriff  of  the 
City  and  County,  and  the  representatives  in  Parlia- 
ment. Lord  Armstrong  invited  the  High  Court  to 
an  afternoon  entertainment  at  his  country  seat  near 
Newcastle.  The  friendly  societies  of  the  United 
Kingdom,  with  their  6,000,000  members,  thus  com- 
pare very  favourably  even  with  the  compulsory 
assurance  system  of  Germany,  with  its  10,000,000 
subscribers.  As  far  as  the  better-paid  workers  are 
concerned,  the  system  leaves  little  to   be   desired, 


134     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

except  its  gradual  extension  and  development ; 
and  any  reform  which  destroyed  all  this  voluntary 
effort  would  be  most  injurious,  at  any  rate  at  its 
commencement,  to  the  social  interests  of  the  people. 
Unfortunately  the  system  does  not  reach  the  worst 
paid  and  most  needy.  It  is  just  those  who  are  too 
poor  to  make  provision  for  sickness,  and  who,  when 
sickness  comes,  are  plunged  into  the  worst  misery 
and  destitution,  that  the  friendly  society  system 
fails  to  provide  for.  It  is  by  the  inclusion  of  all 
workers,  well-  and  ill-paid,  that  the  German  system 
manifests  its  superiority.  The  very  poorest  and 
their  children  have  by  it  medical  aid  assured.  It 
is  worthy  of  observation  how  little  those  public 
authorities,  who  administer  the  Poor  Law, 
encourage  the  thrifty  worker  to  make  provision 
for  sickness  by  putting  his  savings  in  a  friendly 
society.  It  was  long  the  policy  of  the  Poor  Law 
Board,  and  the  Local  Government  Board  which 
succeeded  it,  to  instruct  the  Poor  Law  Guardians 
not  to  give  any  further  relief  to  members  of  sick 
benefit  societies,  beyond  the  amount  which  would 
put  them  on  an  equality  with  those  who  had  never 
saved  at  all.  Membership  of  a  friendly  society  was 
to  afford  no  other  benefit  that  that  of  "  avoiding  the 
degradation  of  parish  support."  "Degradation" 
was  the  insulting  name  applied  by  public  authority 
to  the  conduct  of  a  citizen,  who,  on  behalf  of  him- 
self, his  wife,  or  child,  claimed  the  legal  right  to  that 
relief  in  sickness  which  the  law  provided  for  him. 
No  such  epithet  would  be  thought  of  in  the  case 


MEDICAL    AID  135 

of  any  member  of  the  richer  classes  who  enforced 
his  legal  right,  even  at  the  expense  of  the  public. 
Through  the  strenuous  exertions  of  the  friendly- 
societies  an  Act  of  Parliament  has  recently  been 
passed,  expressly  empowering  the  Guardians  to 
do  their  duty,  and  give  relief  to  persons  notwith- 
standing membership  of  a  friendly  society,  and  to 
grant  such  relief  without  deduction  of  the  money 
received  from  the  society.  This  statute  is  per- 
missive only,  but  if  the  people  will  elect  Boards 
of  Guardians  which  will  carry  the  law  into  execu- 
tion, subscriptions  to  friendly  societies  will  in  future 
enure  to  the  benefit  of  the  member  and  his  family, 
and  be  no  longer  a  contribution  which  he  is  de- 
luded into  making  in  relief  of  rates. 


Municipal  Hospitals 

Every  municipality  has  under  the  Public  Health 
Acts,  as  the  Sanitary  authority,  the  most  ample 
and  unrestricted  power  to  provide  hospitals  for  the 
sick,  for  the  use  of  the  inhabitants  of  their  district. 
They  can  either  build  them,  or  rent  them,  or  enter 
into  a  contract  with  the  managers  of  an  existing 
hospital,  to  pay  for  patients  sent  by  the  municipality. 
This,  however,  is  one  of  the  dormant  powers  of  the 
Public  Health  Acts,  which  has  never  been  fully 
carried  out.  The  Local  Government  Board,  which 
seems  to  exist  for  the  purpose  of  checking  municipal 
enterprise  in  the  supposed  interest  of  the  wealthy, 
has    no    authority    to    prevent    the    provision    of 


136     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

hospitals,  under  the  general  power  of  the  Public 
Health  Acts  ;  and  the  electors  of  any  borough 
could,  if  they  chose,  at  any  time  elect  a  Town 
Council,  pledged  to  the  establishment  of  a  system 
of  public  hospitals,  financed  and  managed  by  the 
Town  Council  in  the  same  way  as  those  which 
exist  in  almost  every  city  in  Europe.  The  public 
authority  can  charge  those  who  are  able  to  pay 
with  the  cost  of  their  maintenance  in  hospital,  and 
recover  the  amount  from  them  as  an  ordinary  debt. 
In  practice,  the  provision  of  hospitals  by  municipal 
authorities  has  been  restricted  to  those  infectious 
diseases,  of  which,  by  law,  notice  has  to  be  given  to 
the  Sanitary  authority.  These  are  defined  by  Act 
of  Parliament,  and  to  them  no  addition  can  be 
made  without  the  consent  of  the  Local  Govern- 
ment Board.  The  diseases  mentioned  in  the  Act 
are  small-pox,  scarlatina,  diphtheria,  typhus  and 
typhoid  fevers,  plague,  and  Asiatic  cholera,  and  to 
these  have  been  added  in  Bolton  and  Sheffield 
by  local  Acts — phthisis.  In  the  case  of  these 
diseases,  the  British  Legislature  has  taken  an 
entirely  new  departure,  and  has  established  the 
principle  of  free  medical  aid  in  sickness  of  this 
particular  kind,  in  as  absolute  and  unqualified  a 
manner  as  the  most  ardent  socialist  could  desire. 
The  dread  of  infectious  disease  on  the  part  of  the 
governing  classes  has  proved  strong  enough  to 
conquer  even  the  dread  of  socialism.  Measles  and 
whooping-cough  are  not  included.  Measles  amongst 
the  poor  is  the  most  common  and  fatal  of  all  infantile 


MEDICAL    AID  137 

diseases,  but  the  children  of  the  rich,  though  they 
have  measles,  do  not  die  of  it :  the  mortality  amongst 
them  is  practically  nothing.  Any  person  who  is 
suffering,  or  who  has  a  child  that  is  suffering,  from 
any  "  notifiable  "  disease,  is  under  a  legal  obligation, 
enforceable  by  penalties,  to  notify  the  fact  to  the 
municipal  Officer  of  Health.  He  is  under  a  further 
obligation  to  conform  to  regulations  made  for  the 
isolation  of  the  patient,  the  disinfecting  of  the  house, 
furniture,  and  bedding,  and  other  means  of  preventing 
the  spread  of  infection.  Unless  the  patient  can  be 
satisfactorily  isolated  in  a  private  house,  he  must 
be  removed  to  the  public  hospital,  and  there  cared 
for  till  he  dies  or  recovers.  The  cost  of  the 
ambulances  by  which  the  sufferer  is  taken  to  hospital 
is  defrayed  by  public  authority.  Few  public 
authorities,  so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  ascertain, 
require  any  payment  from  the  patient  for  his  main- 
tenance in  hospital,  though  entitled  to  this  in  case 
he  is  able  to  pay.  The  Metropolitan  Asylums 
Board  in  London  give  gratuitous  treatment  in  their 
hospitals  without  any  charge  whatever.  In  London 
there  are  fifteen  hospitals  for  infectious  diseases, 
and  in  the  year  1904  there  were  admitted  to  them 
11,155  cases  of  scarlet  fever;  4,687  of  diphtheria; 
750  of  enteric  ;  3  of  typhus  ;  and  449  of  small-pox. 
They  have  besides  two  schools,  which  are  practically 
hospitals,  for  children  suffering  from  ophthalmia, 
and  two  for  children  suffering  from  ringworm,  with 
498  in  the  former  and  569  in  the  latter.  In 
London    the    Borough  Councils   are   the    Sanitary 


138      THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

authority,  and  it  is  by  them  that  the  general 
powers  of  maintaining  hospitals  for  the  sick  under 
the  Public  Health  Acts  can  be  exercised.  The 
Paddington  Town  Council  has  full  power  to 
maintain  the  empty  ward  of  St  Mary's  Hospital 
out  of  the  rates.  Thus,  so  far  as  this  particular 
class  of  infectious  disease  is  concerned,  the 
socialistic  principle  of  free  medical  aid  in  sickness 
is  fully  established,  and  has,  without  our  recognising 
it,  been  long  in  actual  practice.  The  ground  on 
which  this  remarkable  departure  from  individualistic 
principles  would  be  defended  is  public  safety.  The 
isolation  and  treatment  of  these  infectious  diseases 
is  a  matter  of  common  interest  to  all,  and  the 
common  purse,  therefore,  properly  bears  the  cost. 
But  there  are  many  other  diseases  to  which  precisely 
the  same  argument  may  be  applied ;  nothing  but 
the  conservative  obstruction  of  the  Local  Govern- 
ment Board  has  kept  them  so  far  out  of  the 
category.  There  are  three  diseases,  the  admission 
of  which  to  the  category  of  "  notifiable  "  diseases 
has  been  discussed  by  many  Sanitary  authorities — 
measles,  syphilis,  and  tuberculosis — but  so  far,  except 
as  to  the  last,  without  practical  result.  The  first, 
which  is  the  most  fatal  infectious  disease  of  child- 
hood, is  not  in  principle  distinguishable  from  scarlet 
fever  or  diphtheria,  but  is  less  fatal  to  adults  and 
to  the  children  of  the  rich  :  otherwise  it  would  have 
been  included  long  ago.  Syphilis  is  more  dangerous 
and  destructive  than  any  other  infectious  disease  in 
this,  that  its  effects  descend  to  children  yet  unborn, 


MEDICAL    AID  139 

and  even  to  a  second  and  third  generation,  innocent 
of  the  moral  sin  which  is  often,  but  not  always,  the 
cause  of  its  original  contraction.  Tuberculosis,  now 
recognised  as  an  infectious  disease,  capable  by 
proper  means  of  being  stamped  out,  is  generally 
excluded  for  no  reason  whatever  ;  in  two  cases  at 
least,  Sheffield  and  Bolton,  it  has,  with  the  assent 
of  the  Local  Government  Board,  been  included  by 
local  Acts.  The  power  of  veto  of  the  Central 
Government  only  extends  to  preventing  any  disease 
from  coming  under  the  provisions  as  to  notification 
and  isolation,  and  to  its  exclusion  from  the  hospitals 
of  the  Metropolitan  Asylums  Board.  The  provincial 
Sanitary  authority  can,  under  the  general  powers 
of  the  Public  Health  Acts,  provide  hospitals  for 
measles,  syphilis,  phthisis,  and  any  disease  they 
think  fit,  and  admit  people  without  payment  if  they 
choose.  They  can,  under  the  existing  law,  carry 
out  to  the  fullest  extent  the  socialistic  principle 
of  free  medical  aid  in  sickness,  so  far  as  hospital 
treatment  is  concerned. 


Free  Medical  Aid 

It  is  evident  from  the  foregoing  considerations, 
that  if  any  real  effort  is  to  be  made  by  public 
authority  for  the  improvement  of  public  health  and 
for  securing  a  sound  and  vigorous  race  in  time 
to  come,  one  of  the  first  essentials  is  to  make  a 
radical  reform  in  the  public  provision  of  medical 
aid.      Every  poor  man  must  be  in  a  position  to 


140     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

command  in  time  of  sickness  or  accident  the 
necessary  advice,  medicines,  and  appliances  for 
himself,  his  wife,  and  children.  The  British  volun- 
tary system,  built  up  by  the  friendly  societies,  is 
admirable  as  far  as  it  goes,  but  it  does  not  reach 
the  poorest  and  most  necessitous.  Municipal 
hospitals  are  at  present  confined  to  diseases 
dangerous  to  the  governing  classes  :  measles,  the 
grim  destroyer  of  the  children  of  the  poor  is 
excluded — it  does  not  kill  the  children  of  the  rich. 
The  workhouse  infirmary,  which  in  well  conducted 
Poor  Law  Unions  is  as  good  as  any  hospital,  is,  it  is 
true,  always  available ;  but  the  poor  are  taught 
that  it  is  "degradation"  to  claim  its  benefits  even 
in  vindication  of  the  legal  rights  of  their  children. 
It  is  evident  that  some  further  supplementary 
provision  is  required. 

There  are  two  plans  possible  :  one  is  to  make 
medical  aid  free,  as  education  and  vaccination  are 
free ;  the  other  is  to  provide  by  a  system  of 
universal  and  compulsory  insurance  against  sickness, 
so  that  every  poor  man  will,  by  his  savings,  have 
purchased  the  right  to  free  medical  aid  for  himself 
and  his  family  should  illness  or  accident  overtake 
them.  Of  these  two  plans  the  first  would  be  at 
once  denounced  and  dismissed  by  the  great 
majority  of  rich  people  as  flat  socialism ;  the  latter 
would  have  a  much  better  chance  of  being  accepted. 
But  in  truth  there  is  little  difference  in  principle 
between  the  two.  The  result  is  in  both  cases  the 
same — a   right   of   every   poor   man   to   necessary 


MEDICAL    AID  HI 

medical  aid  without  further  payment.  The  only 
difference  is  in  the  method  by  which  the  cost  is 
to  be  defrayed.  In  the  one  it  is  met  out  of  the 
national  revenues  to  which  every  citizen  contributes 
according  to  his  means  or  out  of  that  part  of  the 
unearned  increment  of  land  which  is  appropriated 
to  public  purposes ;  in  the  other,  by  a  special  tax 
on  the  earnings  of  the  workers.  Free  medical  aid 
is  no  doubt  socialism,  but  it  is  no  more  so  than 
free  education  or  free  vaccination.  It  is  defensible 
upon  exactly  the  same  principle  as  that  upon  which 
the  whole  of  our  national  expenditure  has  to  be 
justified.  The  State  may  and  ought  to  do  what 
it  is  the  interest  of  the  whole  community  to  have 
done,  and  what  the  State  can  do  collectively  for  the 
people  better  than  they  can  individually  do  for 
themselves.  It  is  this  principle  that  justifies 
taxation  to  keep  up  the  Army  and  Navy  to  preserve 
us  from  foreign  aggression ;  it  is  this  which  justifies 
the  expenditure  on  police  and  magistrates  to  keep 
order  at  home.  The  strong  man  armed  has  no 
longer  to  keep  his  house  himself  that  his  goods  may 
be  at  peace.  If  a  poor  man's  illness  injured 
nobody  but  himself,  society  might  leave  him  to 
his  own  provision  against  it  and  decline  to  meddle 
in  his  affairs.  But  his  sickness  injures  the  com- 
munity, the  sick  man  from  a  helper  becomes  a 
burden,  and  it  is  the  interest  of  all  to  put  a  stop 
to  this  state  of  things  as  speedily  as  possible.  To 
accomplish  this  by  providing  aid  in  sickness,  the 
State  may  as  properly  tax  itself  as  it  may  for  any 


142     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

public  purpose  useful  to  the  commonwealth.  It 
is  socialism  of  that  kind  without  which  modern 
society  cannot  continue  to  exist.  To  any  proposal 
for  free  medical  aid  in  sickness  unless  restrictions 
were  attached  to  it,  the  most  strenuous  opposition 
would  be  offered  by  all  the  existing  friendly 
societies  and  their  officials.  It  would  be  denounced 
as  interfering  with  their  vested  interests,  for  if 
medical  aid  was  free  to  all,  who  would  think  of 
becoming  a  member  of  a  friendly  society  ?  But  the 
aid  which  was  free  might  be  restricted  to  medical 
advice  and  medicines,  and  might  include  no 
provision  for  the  maintenance  of  the  sick  man 
and  his  family  during  his  inability  to  earn  wages. 
Friendly  societies  would  then  still  have  an  im- 
portant function  to  perform.  It  would  still  be  the 
interest  of  all  workers  to  become  members  of  a 
friendly  society,  in  order  to  secure  a  maintenance 
provision  for  themselves  and  their  families  during 
the  time  of  sickness.  In  the  absence  of  such 
provision  they  might  be  driven,  notwithstanding 
the  State's  offer  of  free  advice  and  medicine,  to 
dependence  upon  the  Poor  Law.  The  right  to 
free  medical  aid  might  also  be  restricted  to 
children.  Friendly  societies,  it  is  true,  have 
juvenile  branches,  but  the  number  of  juvenile 
members  is  comparatively  small,  and  the  societies 
would  not  fight  so  strenuously  for  their  retention. 
In  this  case  no  new  State  obligation  would  be 
created — the  State  is  now  liable  for  medical  aid 
to  children  in  the  event  of  parents  failing  to  provide 


MEDICAL    AID  143 

it — only  the  chance  of  recovering  the  amount 
expended  from  the  parent  would  be  given  up, 
and  this  is  not  generally  of  much  value.  The  parent 
would  still  remain  liable  for  the  ordinary  main- 
tenance in  food,  clothing,  and  lodging  of  his  sick 
child,  just  as  he  is  for  his  sound  child ;  he  would 
only  be  relieved  of  the  extra  cost  occasioned  by 
sickness,  and  of  nothing  more.  Sick  children  are 
a  source  of  much  greater  danger  to  the  State  than 
sick  adults,  and  .this  is  ample  justification  for  the 
State  assuming  the  cost  of  attending  and  curing 
them. 


State  Insurance  against  Sickness 

If  the  opposition  of  the  friendly  societies,  and 
the  terror  which  the  richer  classes  feel  at  anything 
which  is  called  "  socialism,"  prevent  the  adoption 
by  the  State  of  free  medical  aid,  the  same  objections 
cannot  be  urged  against  a  system  by  which  all 
workers  insure  themselves  against  sickness.  In- 
deed the  absence  of  such  a  system  is  in  some 
sense  an  injustice  to  those  thrifty  members  of  the 
working  class  who  have  joined  friendly  societies. 
Sick  people  and  their  families  have  after  all  to 
be  cured  and  maintained.  You  cannot  economise 
medical  treatment  in  sickness.  It  is  cruel  and 
it  is  wasteful.  Yet  you  are  constrained  to  give 
to  those  who  have  made  no  provision  at  all 
treatment  as  good  as  that  which  the  member 
of    a    friendly    society   has    provided    out   of    his 


144      THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

earnings.  This  plan  of  compulsory  insurance 
against  sickness  and  accident  has  been  carried 
out  with  great  elaboration  and  success  in  Germany. 
Thirty  or  forty  years  ago  the  political  necessity 
of  taking  steps  to  improve  the  social  condition 
of  the  workers  struck  simultaneously  many  great 
minds  in  Europe,  amongst  others  those  of  Mr. 
Disraeli  and  Prince  Bismarck.  The  former  in 
reorganising  his  party  after  its  crushing  defeat 
in  1868  appealed  to  the  workers  for  their  support 
and  promised  social  and  sanitary  reform  as  the 
first  constructive  policy  of  his  party  if  he  was 
again  entrusted  with  power.  The  Conservative 
working  man  and  the  Conservative  majority  of 
1874  were  the  answer  to  his  appeal.  The  Parlia- 
ment of  1874  was  distinguished  above  every 
other  Parliament  of  the  last  century  for  its  social 
and  sanitary  legislation.  Since  Mr.  Disraeli's 
death,  the  zeal  of  his  party  for  social  reform  has 
gradually  evaporated.  The  rise  of  the  new  Labour 
party  has  been  the  result,  and  the  confidence  now 
lost  by  the  governing  classes  may  never  be 
restored.  Prince  Bismarck,  who  was  under  no 
necessity  of  courting  the  democracy,  went  upon 
a  different  line.  After  the  conclusion  of  the  French 
war  he  impressed  upon  the  German  Emperor 
and  upon  his  colleagues  in  administering  the 
affairs  of  the  Kingdom  of  Prussia  and  of  the 
German  Empire,  the  necessity  of  furthering  the 
welfare  of  the  working  people  in  Germany.  He 
suggested   to   the   aged    Emperor   that   he   should 


MEDICAL    AID  145 

carry  with  him  to  the  grave  the  consciousness  of 
having  given  to  his  country  an  additional  and 
lasting  assurance  of  internal  peace,  and  the  con- 
viction that  he  had  rendered  to  the  needy  that 
assistance  to  which  they  were  justly  entitled. 
In  order  to  realise  these  views  the  great  insurance 
laws  of  Germany  were  carefully  and  elaborately 
prepared  and  enacted.  They  have  been  amended 
since  their  enactment  as  the  result  of  experience 
obtained  in  their  practical  working,  but  their 
principle  has  not  been  altered.  They  provide 
for  all  workers  throughout  the  German  Empire 
protection  against  pecuniary  loss  resulting  from 
industrial  accidents,  from  sickness,  from  invalidity, 
i.e.,  incapacity  any  longer  to  earn  a  living,  and 
from  old  age.  The  funds  for  these  purposes  are 
provided  partly  by  the  workers  themselves,  partly 
by  the  employers,  and  partly  by  the  State.  In 
the  case  of  sickness  there  was  no  interference 
with  existing  benefit  societies  provided  they 
were  actuarily  solvent  and  gave  the  minimum  of 
sick  benefits  required  by  the  State  system.  But 
every  worker  was  obliged  to  be  insured  either 
in  them  or  in  the  State  insurance.  His  weekly 
contribution  was  regulated  by  the  amount  of  his 
weekly  wages  and  other  conditions,  but  roughly 
it  amounted  to  something  like  threepence  per  week 
all  round,  some  more  some  less.  The  amount 
was  deducted  by  the  employer  on  pay-day,  and 
was  paid  in  by  him  with  an  addition  of  50  per 
cent,    to   the   insurance   society   or    the    State,    as 


146      THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

the  case  might  be.  This  is  of  course  a  tax  on 
wages,  and  both  the  direct  contribution  and  the 
50  per  cent,  augmentation  paid  by  the  employer, 
come  ultimately  out  of  the  worker's  pocket,  and 
diminish  to  that  extent  the  wages  he  would  other- 
wise obtain.  It  is  the  compulsion  exercised  on 
the  worker  by  a  paternal  and  benevolent  Govern- 
ment compelling  everybody  to  do  that  which  the 
prudent  and  thrifty  would  do  of  their  own  accord. 
Probably  the  wild  independence  of  the  British 
worker  would  make  it  difficult  to  induce  him  to 
accept  such  a  legal  obligation.  In  the  case  of 
industrial  accidents  the  whole  of  the  funds  required 
are  provided  by  the  employers  and  are  regarded 
as  part  of  the  costs  of  production.  Compensation 
is  obtained  by  the  injured  worker  or  his  family 
not  directly  from  the  employer,  as  the  discharge 
of  a  legal  claim  or  as  the  result  of  costly  litigation, 
but  is  awarded  to  him  or  them  by  an  insurance 
society.  In  case  of  dispute  the  claim  is  decided  by 
a  tribunal  of  arbitration  composed  of  a  judicial 
officer,  a  representative  of  the  employers  and  a 
representative  of  the  workers  ;  the  proceedings  are 
prompt  and  involve  no  expense  to  the  claimant. 
In  the  case  of  invalidity  and  old  age  an  amount 
varying  according  to  age  and  wages,  roughly 
amounting  to  a  little  more  than  a  penny  a  week 
all  round,  is  contributed  by  the  worker  and  deducted 
as  the  sick  insurance  from  his  wages.  To  this 
the  employer  adds  an  equal  amount  and  pays 
the    whole   sum   into   the    State   insurance    office. 


MEDICAL    AID  147 

When  invalidity  or  old  age  {i.e.,  the  attainment 
of  70  years  of  age)  supervene  and  the  weekly 
pension  becomes  payable,  the  State  adds  to  it 
a  sum  of  50  marks  per  annum. 

The  minimum  relief  under  these  insurance  laws, 
to  which  all  the  insured  have  a  legal  claim, 
includes — 

1.  Free  medical  attendance  and  medicines  from 
the  beginning  of  the  illness,  likewise  spectacles, 
trusses,  bandages,  &c. 

2.  In  case  of  incapacity  for  work  from  the 
third  day  of  the  illness  for  every  working  day 
for  twenty-six  weeks  a  sick  pay  amounting  to 
one-half  the  daily  wages  on  which  the  contributions 
have  been  based  ;  or,  if  the  case  is  one  for  hospital 
treatment,  free  admittance  to  a  hospital  together 
with  half  the  sick  pay  for  the  family. 

3.  Burial  money  amounting  to  twenty  times 
the  average  daily  wages. 

4.  Sick  relief  to  women  during  six  weeks  after 
confinement. 

Extra  relief  may  be  given  for  increased  contri- 
butions. The  law  allows  the  double  insurance  of 
sick  pay  up  to  the  full  amount  of  the  daily  earnings. 
It  also  authorises  the  extension  of  relief  for  a  whole 
year  instead  of  twenty-six  weeks,  and  for  women  to 
twelve  instead  of  six  weeks  after  confinement.  The 
relief  may  be  extended  to  other  members  of  the 
family  and  to  convalescents. 

The  compensation  in  case  of  accident  consists 
of— 


148     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

i.  In  case  of  bodily  injuries  from  the  beginning 
of  the  fourteenth  week  after  the  accident  {i.e.,  in 
continuation  of  the  sick  insurance)  free  medical  aid, 
including  the  necessary  medicines  and  remedies, 
and  a  pension  during  the  period  of  disablement, 
amounting  in  case  of  total  disablement  to  two-thirds 
of  the  yearly  earnings ;  or  free  hospital  treatment 
until  the  cure  is  finished,  and  a  subsistence  pension 
for  the  family  in  the  meanwhile. 

2.  In  the  case  of  fatal  injuries,  burial  money 
equal  to  a  fifteenth  part  of  the  yearly  earnings  but 
not  less  than  50  marks,  and  pensions  to  dependent 
survivors,  including  widows,  children  under  15, 
orphan  grandchildren,  needy  parents  and  grand- 
parents, from  20  to  60  per  cent,  of  the  yearly 
earnings. 

The  invalidity  and  old  age  pensions  and  the 
contributions  required  to  purchase  it  vary  according 
to  the  class  to  which  the  worker  belongs.  The 
wage-earners  have  been  divided  for  this  purpose 
into  five  classes  :  I.,  those  whose  yearly  earnings 
amount  to  350  marks  or  under;  II.,  to  550;  III., 
to  850;  IV.,  to  1,150;  V.,  above  1,150  marks.  The 
weekly  contribution  varies  from  14  pfennige  in 
Class  I.  to  36  in  Class  V.,  i.e.,  from  i*68d.  to  4'32d. 
The  old  age  pension  obtained  amounts  in  Class  I.  to 
no  marks  per  annum;  in  II.  to  140;  in  III.  to 
170;  in  IV.  to  200;  and  in  V.  to  230.  The 
invalidity  pension  consists  of  the  State  subsidy  of 
50  marks,  and  of  a  sum  paid  out  of  the  insurance 
fund   which   is   increased   as    time    goes   on.      At 


MEDICAL    AID  149 

present  this  sum  varies  from  60  marks  in  Class  I.  to 
100  in  Class  V.  It  is  estimated  that  in  fifty  years, 
when  the  increasing  charges  have  reached  the 
highest  point  and  the  pensions  annually  coming  on 
and  going  off  the  funds  will  balance  each  other,  the 
invalidity  pensions  will  be — in  Class  I.,  185  marks 
per  annum;  in  Class  II.,  270;  in  Class  III.,  330; 
in  Class  IV.,  390 ;  and  in  Class  V.,  450.  The 
invalidity  pension  is  much  higher  than  the  old  age 
pension,  and  rightly  so.  No  man,  whatever  his  age, 
is  in  need  of  a  pension  for  himself  at  least,  so  long 
as  he  retains  the  capacity  to  work.  If  unable  to 
work  he  has  not  in  Germany  to  wait  till  he  is  70 
years  of  age — he  can  claim  and  obtain  his  pension 
at  once.  At  70  he  gets  a  pension  even  though 
still  able  to  work ;  but  his  old  age  pension  can  be 
turned  into  an  invalidity  pension  of  greater  amount 
whenever  his  vigour  fails.  It  is  almost  impossible 
to  overestimate  the  beneficial  effect  on  the  social 
condition  of  the  German  nation  which  these  great 
insurance  laws  have  produced.  The  funds  have  no 
doubt  been  mainly  supported  by  the  taxation  of  the 
workers  themselves.  The  contributions  of  the 
capitalists  are  rather  illusory.  But  the  result  of 
having  the  best  medical  aid  in  sickness  and  accident 
brought  within  reach  of  every  man  has  told  upon 
the  health  and  vigour  of  the  people,  and  is  producing 
a  race  which  must  inevitably  leave  us  far  behind 
unless  some  vigorous  reforms  are  promptly  insisted 
on  by  the  people  of  Great  Britain  themselves,  and 
the  governing  classes  find  themselves  constrained, 


150     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

in  order  to  preserve  their  political  power,  to  have 
such  reforms  carried  into  execution.  The  day  of 
amateur  dilettanti  public  men  has  gone  by  ;  the 
nation  demands  serious  statesmen,  who  will  employ 
competent  administrators. 


Testimony  of  the  Birmingham  Brassworkers 

In  1905  the  brassworkers  of  Birmingham  sent  a 
deputation  to  Berlin  for  the  purpose  of  comparing 
the  condition  of  the  brassworkers  of  the  two  cities. 
Nothing  can  more  strikingly  illustrate  the  contrast 
between  British  and  German  methods  of  education 
than  the  result  of  their  inquiry.  They  were 
"greatly  impressed  with  the  cleanliness  and  tidiness 
of  the  children  playing  about  in  the  streets,  courts, 
and  squares.  Of  all  the  thousands  of  children  there 
was  not  one  who  was  not  clean,  neat,  and  tidy." 
They  visited  a  public  school  for  two  thousand 
children  in  the  Rigaef  Strasse — a  quarter  in- 
habited by  the  poorer  classes.  They  saw  "no 
case  of  underfed,  poorly  clad,  or  untidy  children, 
either  in  the  streets  or  in  the  school.  They  must 
come  clean  and  well  dressed.  There  are  thirty- 
six  official  school  doctors  in  Berlin,  each  having  a 
group  of  about  seven  schools  to  attend  to.  Every 
new  scholar  is  examined  by  them,  and  doubtful 
children  are  thoroughly  examined  in  the  presence 
of  their  parents.  If  needful  they  are  kept  under 
medical  supervision,  and  special  seats  are  provided 
where   defective   vision   or   hearing   render   it   ad- 


MEDICAL    AID  151 

visable.  Spectacles  or  instruments  are  provided. 
The  Director  has  funds  supplied  with  which  to  help 
needy  children  with  food ;  but  the  sum  required 
was  practically  nothing,  for  it  only  amounted  to 
£2  among  the  two  thousand.  In  the  basement 
were  extensive  bathing  accommodations,  principally 
warm  shower  baths.  Each  of  the  two  thousand 
children  received  a  shower  bath  weekly.  Soap  was 
provided  but  they  brought  their  own  towels."  The 
same  deputation  visited  a  Birmingham  Board 
School  in  a  workman's  neighbourhood,  inhabited  by 
the  poorer  classes.  "  The  children,"  they  reported, 
"  were  mostly  dirty  and  tattered ;  a  large  number 
wore  very  bad  boots,  not  cleaned  ;  and  some  with 
soles  so  dilapidated  that  the  toes  showed  through. 
The  physique  of  the  children  was  puny.  The 
morning  was  warm,  and  although  the  windows 
were  wide  open  the  smell  was  oppressive  and 
unclean.  The  class-rooms  and  desks  were  washed 
seven  times  a  year  and  swept  daily.  The  closets 
were  on  the  yard  and  flushed  daily.  They  smelled 
offensively.  Outside  the  school  there  were  evidences 
that  the  children  of  the  neighbourhood  were  un- 
disciplined and  out  of  control.  In  comparison  with 
the  Berlin  school  everything  was  very  dirty  and 
untidy.  There  was  one  thermometer  in  the  large 
class-room  and  none  in  the  smaller  class-rooms.  A 
great  number  were  employed  as  Daily  Mail  boys, 
in  barbers'  shops,  on  errands,  or  in  small  businesses. 
There  were  many  underfed  children.  There  is  one 
medical  officer  in    Birmingham  and  one  assistant 


152     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

lady  medical  officer.  He  visits  this  school  once  a 
year,  and  the  parents  of  the  children  who  are  unfit 
are  advised  to  get  them  attended  to."  The  contrast 
observed  by  the  brassworkers  between  these  two 
schools  is  the  best  possible  illustration  of  the 
difference  between  the  care  which  Germany  takes 
of  the  children  of  the  nation  and  the  care  which 
Great  Britain  is  taking  of  hers. 


CHAPTER   IX 

THE   FOREST   SCHOOL   AT   CHARLOTTENBURG 

THE  municipality  of  Charlottenburg,  which  is 
already  famous  in  the  educational  world  for 
its  great  technical  school,  established  two  years  ago 
a  sort  of  hospital  school  in  a  pine  forest  near 
the  town  for  physically  weak  children  who  were 
under  medical  treatment.  The  school  is  a  concrete 
example  of  what  a  prudent  State  should  do  for  the 
rising  generation,  in  order  to  secure  that  the  future 
race  of  citizens  shall  be  healthy  and  strong.  The 
plan  is  one  that  any  municipality  in  England  could 
imitate  without  further  statutory  powers  under  the 
provision  of  the  Public  Health  Acts.  For  the 
benefit  of  any  authority  which  may  be  disposed  to 
establish  a  similar  health  resort  for  school  children, 
I  will  describe  the  school  in  some  detail. 

Origin  of  the  Idea 

The  idea  sprang  simultaneously  from  the  Edu- 
cation and  Sanitary  departments  of  the  Municipal 
Government,    and   was    worked   out   by    them    in 

153 


154      THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

concert.  They  agreed  that  it  was  eminently  desir- 
able that  some  care  should  be  taken  by  public 
authority  of  children  who  were  feeble  in  body, 
as  had  already  been  taken  of  children  who  were 
feeble  in  mind.  The  plan  of  open-air  treat- 
ment was  the  natural  development  of  the  open-air 
sanitoria  for  the  treatment  of  consumption,  which 
form  now  a  regular  municipal  institution  in  every 
German  city — an  institution  which  efforts  are  now 
being  made  by  charity  to  copy  in  this  country. 
The  Education  department  cherished  the  hope 
that  through  increased  care  for  the  children's  health, 
which  would  be  attained  by  stimulating  the  mind 
and  strengthening  the  body  through  a  life  in  the 
woods  amidst  light  and  air,  the  educational  results 
would  be  much  more  satisfactory ;  the  Sanitary 
department  looked  for  a  great  improvement  in  the 
muscular  and  vital  conditions  of  the  sickly  school 
children  through  transplanting  them  from  the  streets 
and  alleys  of  the  town  to  the  healthiest  environ- 
ment that  was  attainable.  When  these  two  authori- 
ties came  to  an  actual  examination  of  the  school 
children,  they  found  that  there  were  some  whom 
the  teachers  would  gladly  weed  out  for  the  purpose 
of  obtaining  a  better  scholastic  result,  and  there 
were  some  whose  physical  condition,  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  school  doctors,  required  amending  and 
strengthening,  and  that  the  two  classes  were  prac- 
tically identical.  A  considerable  number  of  scholars, 
in  consequence  of  anaemia  and  bodily  feebleness, 
were  used  up  in  body  and  mind  by  a  few  hours  of 


FOREST  SCHOOL  AT  CHARLOTTENBURG     155 

school  work ;  their  attention  flagged  ;  they  could  no 
longer  follow  the  instruction  with  the  necessary 
effort ;  and  by  the  daily  recurrence  of  this  lack  of 
freshness,  they  ended  by  falling  hopelessly  behind 
their  fellow-pupils.  Many  of  these  were  children 
of  bright  mental  powers,  quite  fit  to  take  their  place 
at  the  head  of  the  class,  if  their  bodily  deficiency  was 
made  good.  In  looking  through  the  classes,  the 
schoolmaster  and  the  doctor,  each  from  his  different 
point  of  view,  pitched  upon  the  same  children  as 
requiring  more  separate  and  individual  care  both 
for  their  mental  and  corporal  well-being.  The 
Education  and  the  Sanitary  departments  were 
thus  united  in  the  opinion  that  there  should  be  es- 
tablished in  the  fresh,  bracing  air  of  the  pine  forest 
by  Charlottenburg  a  school  for  ailing  and  convales- 
cent children,  at  which  the  pupils  should  receive 
special  care  for  their  bodily  infirmities,  and  should 
at  the  same  time  go  on  with  their  education,  so  far 
as  their  health  permitted. 

The  Establishment  of  the  School 

In  the  beginning  of  the  year  1904  the  attention 
of  the  Municipal  Council  of  Charlottenburg  had 
been  called  independently  to  the  general  desirability 
of  establishing  sanitoria  for  sickly  school  children. 
Meanwhile  the  forest  had  been  explored  and  a 
suitable  site  discovered,  about  eight  minutes'  walk 
from  a  station  of  the  electric  railway  which  passes 
through   the   forest.     It   was  an  undulating  sandy 


156      THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

spot,  carpeted  with  short,  springy  turf,  and  thickly 
covered  with  fir-trees.  The  wood  contained  clumps 
of  bramble  bushes.  There  was  fresh  air  free  from 
dust,  and  a  silent  stillness  in  the  forest,  inviting 
to  rest  and  restoration.  A  private  company  to 
which  that  part  of  the  forest  belonged  conceded  the 
right  to  use  the  land  for  the  purpose  of  a  school  for 
several  years.  The  "  Vaterlandische  Frauenverein  " 
undertook  the  domestic  arrangements  of  the  school 
for  costs  out  of  pocket  and  gave  for  the  use  of  the 
school  a  wooden  building  worth  4,500  marks.  In 
May  the  project  was  definitely  adopted  by  the 
Education  department.  On  June  7th  the  con- 
ference of  school  doctors  declared  themselves 
satisfied  with  the  details  of  the  plan  ;  on  the  9th 
the  scheme  was  approved  by  the  magistrates ;  and 
on  the  10th  it  was  brought  before  the  Municipal 
Council.  It  was  recommended  to  the  Council  on 
the  ground  that  in  the  public  elementary  schools 
there  was  to  be  found  a  considerable  number  of 
boys  and  girls  whose  condition  of  health  was  such 
as  urgently  to  demand  that  they  should  not  be 
instructed  with  the  other  children  in  the  school 
classes.  For  them  the  atmosphere  of  a  room,  in 
which  fifty  or  more  scholars  had  been  engaged  for 
a  whole  morning,  was  especially  dangerous ;  the 
intervals  of  rest  were  too  short ;  and  the  exigence 
of  a  four  or  five  hours'  course  of  study  was  too 
great  for  their  attention  to  last  out  till  the  end. 
Such  children  were  those  who  were  suffering  from 
serious  chronic  disease  of  the  lungs  or  of  the  heart, 


FOREST  SCHOOL  AT  CHARLOTTENBURG     157 

from  extreme  ansemia,  and  from  scrofula,  not  ill 
enough  to  obtain  admission  into  a  regular  hospital, 
but  too  ill  to  keep  pace  with  healthy  children.  Re- 
maining in  the  crowded  classes  brought  upon  these 
children  the  risk  of  their  lighter  ailments  developing 
into  serious  disease.  To  separate  them  from  the 
rest,  and  to  instruct  them  with  the  most  active 
regard  to  the  condition  of  their  health,  in  a  common 
school  in  pure,  fresh  air  was  just  as  much  for  the 
interest  of  the  sick  as  for  that  of  the  healthy,  and 
just  as  much  for  the  interest  of  the  school  as  for 
that  of  the  home.  Unanimously  and  without 
adjournment  the  Municipal  Council  adopted  the 
scheme  of  the  Forest  School  and  voted  32,000 
marks  for  the  establishment  of  the  school,  and  for 
current  expenses  to  the  end  of  the  summer.  The 
Prussian  Government  gave  its  sanction  on  July  5th  ; 
and  the  Forest  School,  with  ninety-five  scholars, 
was  opened  on  August  1,  1904.  No  children  with 
infectious  disease,  or  suffering  from  epilepsy,  violent 
hysteria,  St.  Vitus'  dance,  or  complaints  of  that 
kind  were  admitted  ;  they  are  otherwise  cared  for 
in  Prussia.  The  children  were  selected  by  the 
school  doctors  from  the  public  elementary  schools  of 
the  town,  and  were  finally  examined  and  admitted 
by  Dr.  Bendix,  who  had  medical  charge  of  the 
Forest  School. 

The  Buildings 

The  site  of  the  school  occupies  about  one  hectare 
of  forest,   enclosed  by  a  wire  fence,  a  metre  and  a 


158      THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

half  high.  It  is  entered  by  a  gateway  over  which 
the  blue  and  yellow  flag  of  Charlottenburg  floats. 
The  buildings  are  all  of  one  storey,  inexpensive, 
and  temporary.  The  school-house,  which  is  on  the 
right  of  the  entrance,  contains  two  roomy  class- 
rooms, 8  metres  by  6  metres  for  the  children  and 
small  rooms  for  the  teachers.  There  are  large 
windows  up  to  the  ceiling  generally  kept  open, 
besides  other  ventilation  ;  the  rooms  are  full  of  light 
and  air.  These  rooms  are  sometimes  used  in  bad 
weather  for  dining-rooms  and  play-rooms,  and  have 
furniture  provided  for  those  purposes  as  well  as  for 
school.  There  is  an  annexe  at  each  end  for  cloak- 
rooms for  boys  and  girls  respectively  ;  each  child  has 
a  hook  and  a  shelf  of  its  own.  Separated  by  a 
short  distance  from  the  school-house  is  a  large  shed, 
open  on  the  south  side  but  with  an  overhanging 
roof  as  a  protection  from  rain.  This  is  a  refuge  for 
the  children  in  bad  weather.  On  the  left  of  the 
entrance,  at  some  distance  from  the  school -house, 
are  the  domestic  buildings.  There  is  a  room  for 
the  sisters,  who  manage  the  domestic  arrangements, 
a  kitchen,  store-rooms,  and  servants'  bedrooms,  a 
milk-cellar,  and  a  kennel  for  the  dog  which  pro- 
tects the  premises  at  night.  Adjoining  the  domestic 
buildings  are  washing  and  bathing  rooms,  very 
freely  used  by  those  children  who  are  not  restrained 
from  cold  water  by  doctor's  orders.  An  abundant 
supply  of  pure  water  is  furnished  by  the  Charlotten- 
burg waterworks.  Far  removed  from  school-house 
and    domestic    buildings    are    the    offices  for  the 


FOREST  SCHOOL  AT  CHARLOTTENBURG     159 

children,  clean  and  sanitary.  In  front  of  the 
school-house  tables  and  benches  are  set  out  under 
the  high  trees  a  table  with  its  two  benches  for  each 
class,  graduated  according  to  the  size  of  the  children  ; 
to  keep  their  feet  from  damp,  foot-boards  are  laid 
under  the  tables.  These  tables  may  be  used  at  any 
time  ;  their  primary  purpose  is  for  meals  and  the 
preparation  of  school  work.  All  around  within  the 
limits  of  the  school  site  are  scattered  seats  and 
benches  of  various  kinds,  many  with  a  thatched 
roof ;  they  are  much  frequented  by  the  older  girls 
for  reading  and  sewing.  In  a  sheltered  nook  are 
swings,  parallel  bars,  and  other  gymnastic  appa- 
ratus, for  children  to  whom  these  exercises  are  not 
prohibited  by  doctor's  orders.  Between  the  gym- 
nasium and  the  school-house  is  a  large  open  space, 
shaded  by  trees,  where  the  children  dance  and  play 
games  under  the  supervision  of  a  young  girl  teacher. 
At  the  extremity  of  the  site  is  a  sandy  bank  honey- 
combed by  the  excavations  of  the  boys,  who  give 
free  rein  to  their  imagination  in  the  objects  which 
they  construct  in  the  sand.  In  the  summer  of  1904 
Port  Arthur  was  many  times  stormed  and  taken  ; 
when  I  visited  the  school  in  the  following  year  I 
was  introduced  to  a  more  peaceful  scene  ;  I  saw  the 
Bavarian  Highlands,  entrance  5  pfennige,  depicted 
in  a  sand  hole.  There  were  forests  and  green  Alps  ; 
there  was  a  picket  of  soldiers  in  tents  ;  there  were 
waggons  and  horses  on  the  roads  and  tourists  on 
the  hillside ;  there  was  even  a  waterfall  down 
which  a  confederate  at  the  right  moment  poured 


160     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

water  from  a  watering-can  ;  and  there  was  a  rare 
flower  which  grew  only  in  the  Bavarian  Alps, 
which  the  showman,  a  bright  little  boy  of  10, 
plucked  and  presented  to  me.  In  front  of  the 
school-house  and  in  other  suitable  places  are  beds 
of  flowers  and  flowering  shrubs,  intended  not  only 
for  ornament  but  to  give  lessons  in  gardening  to 
the  children,  and  especially  to  the  girls. 

Lessons 

For  teaching  the  children  were  divided  into  six 
classes,  no  separation  being  made  between  boys  and 
girls.  This  mixing  of  the  sexes  is  not  usual  in 
Prussian  schools  ;  but  the  novel  experiment  was 
satisfactory.  In  the  view  of  the  authorities  it  had 
not  merely  no  drawback,  but  even  advantages  of 
various  kinds.  Many  a  clumsy,  heavy  boy  felt 
stirred  up  to  greater  activity  when  a  lively  little 
girl  next  to  him  held  up  her  hand  before  he  did  to 
answer  the  teacher's  question.  The  girls,  on  their 
side,  took  a  lesson  from  the  greater  calmness  of  the 
boys,  and  answered  with  more  reflection.  On  the 
rougher  manners  of  the  boys  the  presence  of  the 
neater  and  gentler-behaved  girls  had  a  moderating 
influence.  The  school  hours  were  for  the  lowest 
class  two  hours  a  day,  for  the  three  next  two-and- 
a  half  hours,  and  for  the  two  upper  classes 
thirteen  or  fourteen  a  week.  The  classes  were 
so  small  and  the  individual  attention  that  could 
therefore  be  given  to  each  child  was  so  great,  that 


FOREST  SCHOOL  AT  CHARLOTTENBURG     161 

in  spite  of  the  shortening  of  hours  the  knowledge 
and  capabilities  that  could  be  instilled  into  each 
child  were  not  less  than  could  have  been  acquired 
in  the  ordinary  school.  On  their  return  to  the 
ordinary  school,  they  found  themselves  on  the  same 
level  as  their  former  class-mates.  Instruction  in 
singing,  physical  exercises,  and  nature  knowledge, 
was  given,  as  far  as  weather  permitted,  in  the 
open  air. 

School  Life  of  the  Children 

The  life  in  the  Forest  School  was  as  follows. 
The  children,  about  120  in  number,  arrived  ata 
quarter  before  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning.  Those 
who  lived  near  came  on  foot ;  those  who  lived  at  a 
distance,  by  the  electric  tram  to  the  "  Ruhwald  " 
station.  The  Charlottenburg  Street  Railway  pro- 
vided reserved  carriages  at  a  stated  hour  at  certain 
fixed  stopping  stations,  and  brought  the  children  up 
into  the  Forest  at  a  charge  of  3  marks  a  month. 
On  their  arrival  they  each  received  a  bowl  of  soup 
and  a  slice  of  bread  and  butter.  At  eight  o'clock 
school  began  for  two  classes,  but  in  order  to  pre- 
serve them  from  undue  fatigue,  the  time  was 
divided  into  half-hour  lessons  ;  after  each  half-hour 
there  was  a  five  minutes'  rest  and  a  ten  minutes'  rest 
after  each  hour.  Longer  than  two  hours  at  a  time 
no  instruction  was  continued.  This  arrangement 
proved  itself  effective  in  the  most  important  branches 
of  study.     If,  for  example,  these  ailing  children  had 


162      THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

vigorously  worked  at  arithmetic  for  half  an  hour, 
their  capacity  for  work  of  that  kind  was  exhausted, 
and  rest  was  urgently  required.  But  a  few  minutes 
run  into  the  invigorating  air  of  the  woods  so 
freshened  them  up  as  to  enable  them  to  follow  with 
attention  instruction  in  a  fresh  subject.  In  the 
interest  of  their  health  it  was  inexpedient  after  the 
rest  to  go  back  to  arithmetic,  or  a  subject  of  the 
same  nature.  At  ten  o'clock  all  the  children  received 
a  basin  of  milk  and  a  slice  of  brown  bread  and 
butter.  Then  two  other  classes  went  into  the 
school,  while  the  rest  of  the  children  occupied 
themselves  as  they  pleased  ;  they  played  or  visited 
the  gymnasium,  or  they  sewed  or  read.  At  half-past 
twelve  the  bell  rang  for  dinner.  The  school  classes 
took  their  proper  places  at  the  long  tables  under  the 
trees.  The  dinner  consisted  of  meat,  potatoes,  vege- 
tables, and  fruit.  A  sister  of  the  Red  Cross  with  three 
servants  attended  to  the  domestic  arrangements  and 
the  cooking.  The  food  was  good  and  appetising,  and 
was  varied  from  day  to  day ;  the  life  in  the  woods 
generally  produced  a  great  increase  of  appetite. 
There  was  no  stint ;  they  might  ask  for  more  as 
often  as  they  liked,  and  get  it.  After  dinner  all 
children  are  required  by  medical  orders  to  rest  for 
two  hours.  Rugs  and  reclining  chairs  are  provided 
for  each  child.  At  first  it  was  extremely  difficult  for 
many  of  them  to  keep  still  even  for  an  hour,  but  in 
time  the  teachers  succeeded  in  procuring  absolute 
stillness  ;  most  of  them  spent  the  two  hours  in  sleep. 
At  three  o'clock  the  last  two  classes,  not  the  same 


FOREST  SCHOOL  AT  CHARLOTTENBURG     163 

every  day,  went  to  school.  At  four  all  the  children 
received  their  afternoon  basin  of  milk  with  brown 
bread  and  jam.  Then  followed  one  or  two  hours 
more  school  for  the  older  classes  ;  but  for  most  the 
afternoon  was  given  up  to  play.  The  last  meal, 
cocoa  or  pudding  and  bread  and  butter,  was  given 
at  half-past  six  o'clock,  and  at  seven  they  set  off 
home  again.  For  thirty  poor  children  the  Munici- 
pality provided  the  tram-fare ;  ten  others  had  free 
tickets  given  them  by  the  directors  of  the  Street 
Railway. 

The   Teachers 

The  staff  to  which  this  important  experiment  in 
education  was  entrusted  consisted  of  three  men 
and  one  woman  teacher,  transferred  for  the  purpose 
by  the  Education  department  from  their  ordinary 
schools  :  two  of  the  former  had  themselves  suffered 
from  phthisis,  and  been  cured  in  the  public  out-of- 
doors  sanatoria,  and  so  brought  special  knowledge 
and  experience  to  the  work  of  the  Forest  School  ; 
the  woman  was  a  Roman  Catholic,  and  was  en- 
trusted with  the  religious  education  of  twelve 
Roman  Catholic  children  who  were  among  the 
scholars.  In  the  afternoons  several  volunteer 
women  teachers  placed  themselves  at  the  disposal 
of  the  school  authorities  to  help  in  the  children's 
games.  At  first  there  was  considerable  difficulty 
in  amalgamating  the  children  into  anything  like 
uniform  classes  :  they  came  from  different  schools, 
and  almost  all  had,   in  consequence   of  continued 


164      THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

sickness,  been  absent  from  school  for  long  periods, 
leaving  gaps  in  different  stages  of  the  school  course 
to  be  filled  up.  The  teachers,  however,  by  honest 
work,  combined  with  patience  and  perseverance, 
succeeded  in  the  almost  impossible  task  ;  they  had 
the  advantage  of  being  continually  with  their  pupils 
out  of  school  hours,  so  that  they  could  give  to  those 
who  stood  in  need  of  help  much  informal  attention, 
and  even  special  teaching.  In  this  way  defects  in 
the  individual  scholars  were  found  out  and  remedied, 
and  the  work  of  the  classes  improved  from  month 
to  month.  Discipline  had  also  to  be  modified 
to  suit  the  circumstances  of  the  children.  Anything 
like  corporal  punishment  was  out  of  the  question, 
and  was  absolutely  prohibited ;  deprivation  of  a  meal 
or  exclusion  from  play  was  objectionable  ;  even 
scolding  and  ridicule  were  with  such  delicate  subjects 
out  of  place.  The  teachers  had  to  be  very  sparing 
of  blame,  and  very  generous  with  praise,  and  that, 
not  only  in  school  hours  but  in  playtime  as  well. 
The  shortness  of  the  lessons  made  it  necessary  to 
go  forward  promptly,  to  pass  over  side  issues,  and 
not  to  devote  precious  time  to  the  few  who  failed 
to  understand,  but  rather  give  to  them  further 
explanation  at  some  opportunity  after  the  lesson 
was  over. 


Visitors  to  the  School 

At  first  all  the  arrangements  of  the  Forest  School 
aroused  the  most  varied  objections  on  the  part  of  the 


FOREST  SCHOOL  AT  CHARLOTTENBURG     165 

parents  :  it  was  difficult  to  persuade  them  to  con- 
tribute the  moderate  cost  of  maintenance.  But  by 
degrees,  as  the  children  grew  better  and  happier 
in  the  green  woods,  as  the  pale  cheeks  turned  red, 
as  the  eyes  became  bright  and  the  movements  more 
lively  and  fresh,  so  confidence  was  developed  among 
the  parents — they  listened  in  the  evenings  to  the 
tales  of  their  children,  who  seemed  to  bring  a 
breath  from  the  forest  into  the  hot,  close  city 
dwelling,  and  they  began  to  visit  the  Forest 
School,  to  convince  themselves,  with  their  own 
eyes,  of  the  benefits  offered  to  their  children.  The 
number  of  visitors  became  so  great  that  they  had 
to  be  restricted  to  two  afternoons  in  the  week  and 
Sunday  afternoon.  There  were  also  visitors  from 
German  states  and  municipalities,  from  foreign 
countries,  from  educational  and  medical  societies, 
even  from  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic.  All 
went  away  praising  the  experiment  of  making  sick 
children  healthy  and  happy.  In  the  merry,  rosy- 
cheeked  children  jumping  about  upon  the  grass 
under  the  pine-trees  it  was  difficult  to  recognise 
the  feeble,  pale-faced  patients  brought  up  from  the 
streets  of  Charlottenburg.  "  I  thought  "  said  a  lady 
visitor,  "  that  the  Forest  School  only  took  in  sickly 
children." 


Medical  Treatment 

The  medical  head  of  the  Forest  School  selected 
the  children  for  admission,  as  before  stated,  out  of 


166     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

those  picked  out  of  the  elementary  schools  by 
the  school  doctors,  and  kept  them  under  medical 
care  and  observation  during  the  whole  period  of 
their  stay.  Their  condition  of  health  was,  during 
the  first  weeks,  carefully  examined,  especially  their 
heart  and  lungs,  and  particulars  of  their  colour, 
muscular  strength,  nutrition,  &c,  were  registered  ; 
they  were  weighed  every  fortnight,  and  other  neces- 
sary medical  examinations  were  made.  At  the  close 
of  the  summer  all  were  again  medically  examined 
and  their  condition  again  recorded.  Besides  the 
general  regulations  of  the  school,  special  orders 
were  given  in  individual  cases,  such  as  the  dress 
of  those  suffering  from  heart  troubles,  prohibition 
of  physical  exercises,  of  excessive  running  about. 
Warm  baths  were  ordered  for  the  anaemic  and 
nervous ;  salt-baths  for  the  scrofulous.  Thus, 
during  the  first  year,  thirty-two  children  had  each 
three  salt-baths  a  week,  and  twenty-five  had  regular 
warm  baths  two  or  three  times  a  week  ;  every  child 
had  two  or  three  warm  spray-baths  a  week.  At 
the  beginning  and  end  of  the  time  daily  visits  were 
paid  to  the  school  by  the  medical  superintendent, 
and  in  the  interval  his  duty  called  him  there  two  or 
three  times  during  the  week.  But  so  absorbing 
was  the  interest  taken  in  this  unique  experiment 
that  he  was  continually  paying  unofficial  visits  to 
witness  the  bodily  and  mental  progress  of  the 
scholars,  and  to  enjoy  the  sight  of  their  healthy 
life  and  occupation  in  the  fresh  air. 


FOREST  SCHOOL  AT  CHARLOTTENBURG     167 

Health  Results 

The  report  made  on  the  improvement  of  the 
health  of  the  children  in  the  Forest  School  at  the 
end  of  the  three  months  for  which  it  was  open  in 
1 904,  was  most  encouraging.  The  general  symptoms 
of  improvement  after  a  few  weeks'  residence  were 
astonishing.  Their  appetite  was  extraordinarily 
improved,  their  disposition  became  joyous  and 
merry,  their  attention  was  lively,  and  the  appear- 
ance of  almost  all  thoroughly  satisfactory.  In  1905 
the  school  was  again  opened  on  the  1st  of  May, 
and  remained  open  till  the  28th  of  October. 
There  were  132  children  in  the  school — 10  more 
than  in  1904.  By  the  kindness  of  Dr.  Neufert, 
the  Stadtschulrat  of  Charlottenburg,  I  am  able  to 
give  the  medical  results  of  the  second  year's  work, 
as  officially  reported  to  the  Municipal  Council  by 
Dr.  Bendix,  the  medical  head  of  the  school.  The 
children  were  reported  on  in  four  divisions  :  — 

1.  The  Ancsmic. — Out  of  42  children — 24  girls 
and  18  boys — none  had  grown  worse,  5  were  un- 
altered,  19  had  got  better,  and  18  were  cured. 

2.  The  Scrofulous. — Out  of  50  children — 24  girls 
and  26  boys — none  had  grown  worse,  6  were 
unaltered,  34  had  got  better,  and  10  were  cured. 

3.  Those  suffering  from  Heart  Affections. — Out 
of  7  children — 4  girls  and  3  boys — none  had  grown 
worse,  none  were  unaltered,  but  all  had  got  better. 
In  these  diseases  cure  is  out  of  the  question. 

4.  Those  with  Lung  Disease. — Out  of  1 2  children 


168     THE    CHILDKEN    OF    THE    NATION 

— 4  girls  and  8  boys — none  had  grown  worse,  3 
were  unaltered,  9  had  got  better,  and  none  were 
cured. 

The  weight  of  almost  all  the  children  increased 
greatly  during  their  residence  at  the  Forest  School. 

Of  those  who  had  remained  during  the  whole 
time  the  school  was  open,  the  average  increase  of 
weight  was  3*316  kilo  each  in  1904  and  3*825  in 
1905.  Even  during  the  cold  and  rainy  weather 
in  October,  notwithstanding  some  deficiency  in 
shoes  and  stockings,  none  of  the  children  caught 
cold  or  suffered  from  catarrh  of  the  nose  or  of  the 
air  vessels  of  the  lungs. 

Education  Results 

On  the  character  of  the  children  the  Forest 
School  exercised  a  favourable  influence,  especially 
in  good  order,  cleanliness,  and  punctuality,  as  well 
as  in  consideration  for  one  another.  Life  in  the 
still  wood,  removed  from  all  mischievous  influences, 
the  association  with  people  of  culture,  the  lively 
thankfulness  for  the  good  done  to  them — all  this 
worked  upon  the  children,  so  that  they  strove  to 
show  themselves  worthy  of  the  benefits  received ; 
there  was  far  less  naughtiness  in  the  latter  than 
in  the  first  weeks.  An  important  factor  was  the 
influence  which  the  children  exercised  on  one 
another  ;  those  who  at  first  were  dirty  and  untidy, 
or  had  uncouth  manners  were  soon  improved  by 
the  influence  of  their  school-fellows.     The  school 


FOKEST  SCHOOL  AT  CHARLOTTENBURG     169 

work  was  satisfactory  :  only  in  five  cases  did  the 
teachers  express  any  dissatisfaction — in  one  case,  it 
was  because  the  sick  child  had  been  employed  to 
distribute  newspapers  before  the  beginning  of  school. 
A  few  weeks  after  the  return,  in  1904,  of  the  first 
batch  of  the  children  to  the  ordinary  schools,  the 
school  authorities  inquired  of  the  headmasters  of 
three  different  schools,  and  received,  without  excep- 
tion, favourable  reports  on  the  returned  scholars, 
their  greater  freshness  and  keener  interest  in  the 
lessons  was  again  remarked.  In  January  of  1905  an 
official  report  from  all  the  schools  on  the  condition 
of  the  children  who  had  been  in  the  Forest  School 
was  called  for,  especially  on  the  point  whether 
the  children  had  so  benefited  by  the  instruction  in 
the  Forest  School  as  to  be  fit  to  go  on  in  their 
former  classes.  In  twelve  cases  only  had  their 
school  capacity  weakened ;  all  the  rest  had  lost  no 
ground  and  some  had  notably  advanced.  But 
it  must  be  remembered  that  in  some  cases  the 
bodily  condition  of  the  children  had  meanwhile 
worsened,  from  the  unhealthy  condition  of  their 
food  and  their  homes,  from  the  overpressure  of  four 
or  five  hours  a  day  of  school,  and  sometimes  from 
acute  attacks  of  their  malady.  Three  months,  or 
even  six  months  as  in  1905,  in  the  woods  is  too 
short  a  time  to  produce  all  the  improvement 
possible  in  an  ailing  child.  As  the  result  of  two 
years'  experience  of  the  Forest  School,  Dr.  Bendix 
recommends — 

1.  That  a  greater  number  of  sick  children  should 


170      THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

be  sent  continuously  year  after  year  to  the  Forest 
School. 

2.  That  the  extension  of  the  school  buildings 
should  be  in  the  first  instance  directed  to  making 
it  available  in  the  winter  months. 

3.  That  the  school  should  be  enlarged  so  as  to 
enable  more  children  to  be  taken  in. 


Cost 

The  installation  of  the  Forest  School  cost  21,296 
marks  (a  little  more  than  ,£1,000) ;  the  current  ex- 
penses for  the  three  months  that  it  was  open  in  1 904 
were  9,380  marks.  The  cost  of  each  child's  food 
worked  out  at  half  a  mark  per  diem,  and  this  the 
parents,  if  able,  were  required  to  pay  ;  for  very 
poor  children  the  whole  cost  of  maintenance  was 
undertaken  by  the  town  authorities.  Before  the 
child  was  received  into  the  school  the  parent  was 
required  to  sign  a  document  containing  particulars 
of  his  family,  and  his  wages  and  means  of  sub- 
sistence, and  undertaking  to  pay  for  the  child's 
maintenance  half  a  mark  a  day,  or  such  smaller  sum 
as,  on  consideration  of  his  means,  was  demanded. 
The  Municipality  of  Charlottenburg  is  now  con- 
sidering the  desirability  of  keeping  open  the  school 
all  the  year  round,  winter  as  well  as  summer, 
and  of  making  domestic  arrangements  whereby 
some  of  the  children  could  remain  all  night  on  the 
premises,  so  as  to  convert  the  summer  day  school 
into  a  permanent  sanatorium  for  children,  with  the 


FOREST  SCHOOL  AT  CHARLOTTENBURG     171 

accession  of  a  large  number  of  day  scholars  during 
the  summer  months.  I  had  the  great  pleasure  and 
satisfaction  of  visiting  the  school  in  June,  1905, 
and  can  bear  testimony,  so  far  as  my  observation 
goes,  to  the  correctness  of  the  account  given  in  the 
official  report.  What  struck  me  most  was  the  air 
of  extraordinary  joyfulness  which  pervaded  the 
whole  establishment,  from  the  medical  super- 
intendent down  to  the  smallest  and  poorest  child ; 
and  I  marvelled  at  the  administrative  ability  which 
had,  at  so  small  a  cost,  provided  such  a  great 
portion  of  health  and  happiness  to  brighten  at  least 
the  beginning  of  life  to  these  poor  children,  so 
neglected  in  our  country.  It  may  justly  be  said 
to  every  Sanitary  authority  in  the  United  Kingdom 
— "  Go,  and  do  thou  likewise." 


CHAPTER  X 


INFANT    SCHOOLS 


AT  three  years  of  age  children  are  invited  to 
come  to  the  public  school.  At  five  they  are 
compelled.  Even  at  the  latter  age  they  are  far  too 
young  for  serious  instruction  and  school  discipline : 
in  most  countries  school  does  not  begin  until 
children  have  completed  their  sixth  year.  That  is 
quite  early  enough,  as  physiology  teaches  us  that 
the  brain  is  not  fully  developed  till  seven  years 
of  age. 

Mothers  must  Work 

The  real  reason  for  beginning  "school,"  as  it  is 
hypocritically  called,  at  so  early  an  age,  is  to  set 
the  mothers  free  to  go  out  to  work.  The  same 
demands  of  industry  which  rob  the  infant  of  its 
mother's  milk,  rob  the  little  child  of  its  mother's 
care  and  love.  It  is  not  the  mother's  fault  ;  she  has 
to  yield  to  the  dire  necessity  of  providing  bread  for 
her  little  ones.  But  it  is  surprising  that  in  this  case 
again,  as  in  that  of  creches  for  children  too  young 
for  the  "  infant  school,"  we  hear  so  little  of  the 
undermining   of  parental  responsibility,  which  the 


INFANT    SCHOOLS  173 

maintenance,  in  public  nurseries  or  in  "infant 
schools "  at  the  public  expense,  of  children  who 
should  be  playing  about  under  their  mother's  care, 
undoubtedly  brings  about.  There  are  homes,  par- 
ticularly in  the  slums  of  cities,  from  which  children 
cannot  be  delivered  too  soon — they  are  unfit  even 
to  be  born  in  ;  but  as  far  as  health  and  education 
is  concerned,  in  almost  all  country  districts  and  in 
many  town  homes  it  would  be  far  better  to  let  little 
children  run  about  free  like  the  young  of  other 
animals,  and  leave  their  growing  brains  fallow,  than 
to  coop  them  up  in  stuffy  schoolrooms  and  force 
them  to  pretend  to  learn.  The  evidence  of  those 
well  acquainted  with  the  habits  of  the  poor  in  the 
United  Kingdom  is  that  mothers,  and  especially 
Irish  and  Jewish  mothers,  are  nearly  always  kind 
to  the  little  children,  and  will  care  for  their  welfare 
so  long  as  they  are  left  in  their  charge  ;  but  their 
sense  of  responsibility  and  their  love  for  them  is 
weakened  by  having  them  torn  away  from  home  at 
so  early  an  age  to  go  to  M  school."  The  areas 
within  which  mothers  have  to  go  out  to  work  are  in 
many  towns  few  and  well  defined,  and  could  easily 
be  provided  for  by  special  and  exceptional  measures, 
if  discretion  in  such  matters  were  left,  as  it  should 
be,  to  local  authority. 

Premature  Schooling 

There  is  another  reason,  besides  that  of  enabling 
mothers   to   go   out   to   work,  which   has    induced 


174      THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

"  educationists "  to  prescribe  schooling  at  the 
earliest  possible  age.  When  boys  and  girls  have 
attained  the  age  of  1 1  or  12  their  labour  becomes 
valuable,  and  the  parents,  who  have  been  hardly 
pressed  by  the  cost  of  maintaining  their  children 
during  the  years  in  which  they  are  at  school,  are 
eager  to  increase  the  scanty  income  of  the  family  by 
their  earnings.  The  poverty  of  the  workers'  families, 
combined  with  the  supposed  interests  of  certain 
employers  to  secure  an  abundant  supply  of  cheap 
child  labour,  has  produced  a  steady  opposition  on 
the  part  of  both  employers  and  employed  to  all 
proposals  for  raising  the  age  up  to  which  children 
must  remain  at  school.  In  this  respect  other 
nations  have  advanced  in  social  reform  more  rapidly 
than  Great  Britain,  and  we  now  employ  children  at 
a  much  younger  age  than  most  of  our  commercial 
rivals.  In  this  difficulty  persons  who  desire  to 
secure  a  certain  number  of  years  schooling  for 
every  child,  have  thought  that  if  we  cannot  add  at 
the  end,  we  may  add  at  the  beginning,  that  by 
commencing  earlier  we  can  leave  off  earlier,  as  if 
torturing  the  immature  brain  of  a  baby  could 
compensate  for  ceasing  to  instruct  just  when  the 
mind  is  most  fitted  to  learn.  The  first  thing  we 
have  to  recognise  is  that  l(  infant  schools"  are  not 
"schools"  at  all,  but  nurseries  for  children  a  little 
older  than  those  in  the  "  creches,"  and  that  any 
attempt  to  make  them  into  schools  is  cruelty. 


INFANT    SCHOOLS  175 

Practical  Compulsion 

Although  attendance  from  3  to  5  is  nominally 
optional,  it  is  not  so  in  reality.  The  managers 
of  schools  have  an  interest  in  getting  the  largest 
attendances  they  can,  and  their  officers  press 
mothers  to  send  the  children  not  only  after  but 
even  before  3  years  of  age.  The  returns  to  the 
Board  of  Education,  on  which  the  grant  is  based, 
take  the  same  account  of  those  under  as  of  those 
over  5  years  of  age.  Many  of  the  local  Educa- 
tion authorities  require  their  attendance  officers  to 
reckon  the  attendances  of  the  little  ones  below 
the  compulsory  age  of  5  in  making  out  the 
average  of  those  upon  the  books  which  they  have 
succeeded  in  getting  to  school.  The  officers  them- 
selves complain  that  by  this  regulation  they  are 
compelled,  for  their  professional  credit,  to  urge 
mothers  to  send  their  babies  to  school  when  they 
would  be  better  at  home.  Cruelty  and  suffering  is 
by  this  practice  caused  to  the  little  children  them- 
selves. When  the  officer  goes  his  rounds,  legs  and 
bodies  may  be  seen  in  many  houses  sticking  out 
from  under  sinks  or  from  behind  piles  of  firewood, 
where  children  have  vainly  tried  to  hide  themselves. 
They  cry  bitterly  when  discovered  and  dragged 
into  the  light.  Foolish  mothers  use  the  officer  as 
a  bogey-man  to  frighten  the  babies  when  naughty, 
and  there  is  a  story  of  one  falling  down  in  a  fit  at 
the  sight  of  him  coming  suddenly  round  the  corner. 
The    reports    made    in    1905    by   all    the    women 


17G      THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

inspectors  of  the  Board  of  Education  on  the 
condition  of  children  in  infant  schools,  following  as 
it  did  a  recommendation  to  close  the  infant  schools 
from  the  Committee  on  Physical  Deterioration, 
induced  the  Board  to  give  notice  that  they  would 
withdraw  the  grant  for  the  attendance  of  all  children 
under  5.  This  prompt  and  drastic  proceeding 
affected  too  many  vested  interests  of  employers  and 
school  authorities  to  be  carried  out.  It  has  now 
been  revoked  and  the  old  state  of  things,  con- 
demned unanimously  by  the  women  inspectors,  has 
been  restored.  If  it  is  necessary,  from  our  social 
and  industrial  conditions  that  the  State  should  in  its 
system  of  national  education  take  charge  of  children 
at  the  early  age  of  3,  the  whole  method  of  treat- 
ment of  those  under  the  age  at  which  serious 
schooling  can  begin,  which  most  authorities  place 
at  7,  should  undergo  revision  and  reform,  and 
should  be  made  the  subject  of  more  humane  and 
rational  regulations. 


Injury  to  Mind  and  Body 

There  is  little  doubt  that  in  many  of  the  infant 
schools  a  great  deal  more  mischief  than  good  is 
done  to  both  the  bodies  and  minds  of  the  children. 
Many  of  the  more  progressive  School  Boards  and 
some  of  the  Voluntary  School  managers  had 
established  schools  on  the  kindergarten  principle, 
and  these  are  still  carried  on  under  the  new  Educa- 
tion  authorities.     But  these  schools  are  generally 


INFANT  SCHOOLS  177 

much  too  large,  and  even  the  kindergarten  methods 
fail  when  applied  wholesale  to  huge  classes.  Spon- 
taneous and  original  thinking  cannot  be  developed 
where  sixty  or  seventy  infants  have  to  do  exactly 
the  same  thing  in  exactly  the  same  way  under  the 
supervision  of  one  teacher  who  requires  perfect 
uniformity.  The  kindergarten  teaching  degenerates 
into  drill  ;  the  learning,  into  the  performance  of  a 
trick.  But  in  a  great  number  of  infant  schools,  the 
place  is  made  a  real  school.  There  was,  and  still 
is  if  it  has  not  been  destroyed,  in  the  archives  of 
the  Education  Office,  a  serious  report  by  a  man 
inspector,  in  which  he  takes  note  that  "the  mental 
arithmetic  of  the  baby  class  leaves  much  to  be 
desired."  There  are  many  good  inspectors,  learned 
in  Greek  and  the  Differential  Calculus,  but  pro- 
foundly ignorant  of  babies,  who  still  demand  results 
from  the  teachers  in  the  infant  school  in  the  shape 
of  reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic,  both  mental  and 
performed  upon  a  slate.  The  poor  women  teachers 
cannot  help  themselves.  They  certainly  know  a 
great  deal  more  about  babies  than  the  man  in- 
spector who  directs  them  or  the  men  secretaries 
and  examiners  who  move  the  man  inspector  from 
Whitehall ;  they  would  if  left  to  themselves  set 
their  little  charges  to  play,  and  never  dream  of 
taxing  the  little  immature  brains  to  do  work  for 
which  they  are  unfit.  But  needs  must  when  the 
devil  drives  ;  the  teacher's  bread  depends  on  her 
doing  as  she  is  told,  and  she  sets  sorrowfully  to 
work  to  addle  the  poor  little  children's  brains  and 


178     THE    CHILDREN    OF   THE    NATION 

to  nip  by  our  foolish  system  of  instruction  the  little 
expanding  minds  in  the  bud.  There  used  to  be  a 
school  in  the  suburbs  of  London  conducted  by  a 
clever  and  original  mistress  to  whom  the  London 
School  Board  had  wisely  given  a  perfectly  free 
hand.  She  banished  reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic 
from  the  school.  The  staple  subjects  of  instruction 
were  drawing  and  painting  from  nature,  and  clay 
modelling,  which  used  to  be  called  in  pre-School- 
Board  days  "  making  mud  pies  " — a  process  to  which 
the  interest  of  the  youngest  child  is  irresistibly 
attracted.  The  zeal  with  which  the  little  infants 
addressed  themselves  to  these  lessons  was  remark- 
able ;  and  their  achievements  extraordinary.  The 
painting  consisted  chiefly  in  imitating,  by  mixing 
water-colour  paints  of  blue,  red,  and  yellow,  the 
bright  tints  of  flowers  which  the  children  brought 
to  school  themselves.  Towards  the  end  of  their 
time,  a  little  reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic  was 
thrown  in  as  an  extra  to  prepare  them  for  the 
school  for  older  children.  But  their  powers  of 
observation  and  their  capacity  to  handle  a  pen  or 
pencil  had  been  previously  developed  by  drawing, 
and  their  intellects  had  been  expanded  by  the  other 
work,  so  that  they  learnt  rapidly  and  went  up  to  the 
older  school  better  readers,  better  writers,  and  better 
arithmeticians  than  if  they  had  plodded  at  these 
subjects,  as  most  infants  have  to  do,  during  the 
whole  of  their  infant  school  career.  The  unanimous 
report  of  the  women  inspectors  above  referred  to, 
confirmed   by   the    chief  inspector   of    the    Board 


INFANT  SCHOOLS  179 

of  Education,  was  that  children  admitted  to  school 
at  a  later  age  could  in  six  months  reach  the  same 
standard  of  attainment  as  those  who  had  been  in 
the  school  for  two  years  previously.     The  system 
of  mechanical  drill,  which  the  too  great  number  of 
children  in  one  class  compels  the  teacher  to  adopt 
has  the  effect  of  dulling  the  curiosity,  the   imagi- 
nation,   and    the    keen    observation,    with    which 
healthy  children  are  endowed  by  nature.     They  are 
not  allowed  to  ask  questions  or  seek  for  knowledge 
for  which  a  natural  child    thirsts.     They   have  to 
answer  the  questions  put  to  them  in  words  put  into 
their  mouths  by  the  teacher  and  repeated  a  hundred 
times  or  more,  till  all  sense  of  meaning  is  crushed 
out.      We   thus   establish  elaborate   machinery   to 
make  the  infants  as  stupid  as  we  can,  in  order  to  pre- 
pare them  for  " education"  in  the  schools  for  older 
children.     The  Board  of  Education  have  discovered 
recently  that  this  system  is  a  very  extravagant  one, 
requiring   as   it   does    the   services   of    a   staff    of 
expensive  teachers,  highly  trained  and  certificated, 
who  would   be   much    more   usefully  employed   in 
teaching  older  children.     Hundreds  of  thousands  of 
pounds  could  be  economised  by  turning  the  infant 
schools  into  nurseries   and  hundreds  of  competent 
certificated  teachers  could  be  set  free  for  the  work 
for  which  the  number  of  certificated  teachers  is  at 
present   wholly   insufficient.     "  There   is  a  general 
agreement,"    says   the   chief  inspector,    "  that   the 
best-informed   teacher  is   not  necessarily   the  best 
baby-minder.     In    London   schools,  where    almost 


180     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

every  teacher  is  trained  and  certificated,  the  results 
are  declared  to  be  inferior  to  those  schools  in  which 
the  teachers  may  not  have  distinguished  themselves 
in  examination,  but  are  motherly  girls.  In  the 
present  dearth  of  teachers  great  relief  could  be 
obtained  at  once  if  it  were  understood  that  the 
ordinary  training  college  course  fitted  students  for 
upper  classes,  but  was  not  necessary  for  the  teach- 
ing of  babies.  .  .  .  Might  not  two  supplementary 
teachers  of  good  motherly  instincts  be  as  good  for 
sixty  babies  between  3  and  5  years  of  age,  as 
one  clever  ex-collegian  ?  "  Most  people,  certainly 
most  women,  would  without  hesitation  answer  the 
chief  inspector's  question  in  the  affirmative. 

Corporal  Punishment 

The  mental  condition  to  which  infants  are  reduced 
by  the  discipline  of  the  infant  school  reacts  most 
unfavourably  upon  their  health  and  development. 
But  their  physical  well-being  is  injured  in  some 
schools  by  more  direct  method.  In  many  schools 
order  and  quiet,  most  unnatural  to  all  young 
creatures,  are  enforced  by  terror  of  being  caned. 
The  Board  of  Education  declare  that  they  "have 
for  some  years  stated  that  caning  is  not  permitted 
in  infants'  departments."  This  declaration  is  not 
accurate.  The  Board  have  for  some  years,  in  their 
Instructions  to  Inspectors,  expressed  a  cautious 
disapproval  of  caning  in  infant  and  girls'  schools, 
but  they  have  never  gone  so  far  as  to  prohibit  it, 


INFANT    SCHOOLS  181 

and  no  effective  steps  have  ever  been  taken  to  put 
it  down.  It  goes  on  to  this  day  in  a  multitude  of 
schools,  never  inquired  into  by  the  inspectors  and 
unchecked  by  the  Board  of  Education.  Great 
Britain  is  the  only  civilised  country  in  the  world 
in  which  the  birch,  the  cane,  and  the  tawse  are 
still  used  as  instruments  of  education.  Germany, 
France,  the  United  States,  our  Colonies,  even 
Egypt  under  our  control,  have  abolished  the 
practice.  The  reason  for  its  retention  here  is  that 
corporal  punishment  is  fashionable  amongst  the 
governing  class,  as  the  occasional  revelations  of 
the  proceedings  in  " smart"  regiments  show.  Most 
of  our  legislators,  our  officials,  and  our  judges  and 
magistrates  have  undergone  such  discipline  in  their 
youth,  and  are  proud  of  it.  Men  will  stand  up  in 
the  House  of  Lords  or  House  of  Commons  and 
declare  with  great  personal  satisfaction  how  they 
were  flogged  at  Eton  or  Harrow  and  how  much  good 
it  did  them.  The  nation  may  tolerate  the  con- 
tinuance of  such  proceedings  amongst  healthy,  well- 
fed  boys  whose  parents  are  in  a  position  to  take  care 
of  them  and  stop  the  practice  if  they  choose.  It 
may  be  regarded  as  a  quaint  survival  of  an  idiosyn- 
crasy of  the  British  aristocracy  interesting  to  the 
social  philosopher.  But  to  the  mass  of  the  people, 
who  are  by  law  compelled  to  send  their  children 
to  schools  in  the  management  of  which  they  have 
no  direct  voice,  who  are  not  proud  of  having  been 
themselves  flogged  in  their  youth,  the  existence 
of  caning  in  girls'  and  infants'  schools  (putting  boys 


182      THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

out  of  the  question  as  designed  by  nature  to  be 
knocked  about)  is  an  intolerable  tyranny.  Now 
and  then  an  exasperated  parent  breaks  out  and, 
if  wise  enough  to  abstain  from  personal  violence 
on  the  teacher,  takes  out  a  summons  for  assault. 
The  defendant's  cause  is  championed  by  the  National 
Union  of  Teachers,  with  its  ample  funds  and  great 
influence.  The  magistrate,  who  was  probably  him- 
self flogged  at  Eton  or  elsewhere,  sympathises  with 
the  teacher,  and  unless  the  case  proves  to  be  one 
of  excessive  brutality  no  conviction  is  obtained. 
The  parent  is  compelled,  under  pain  of  fine  and 
imprisonment,  to  go  on  sending  his  little  infant 
or  his  girl  to  the  school  where  caning  is  practised, 
and  has  no  redress.  Girls  are  constantly  caned 
by  men.  It  is  not  approved  of  by  the  Board  of 
Education,  but  is  nevertheless  done.  Caning  is  in 
many  public  elementary  schools  the  regular  punish- 
ment for  the  most  trivial  offences,  such  as  coming 
late  to  school,  inattention  in  class,  and  is  not 
at  all  confined  to  moral  delinquencies.  I  once 
officially  investigated  a  case  myself,  in  which  a 
dozen  girls  had  absented  themselves  from  school 
on  a  Monday  to  take  part  in  a  Wesleyan  Sunday 
School  treat,  with  the  knowledge  and  presumed 
approbation  of  the  head  mistress.  They  were  all 
caned  on  the  Tuesday  morning  for  omitting  the 
formality  of  bringing  notes  from  their  parents  to 
account  for  and  excuse  their  absence.  Many  head 
teachers  have  entirely  abolished  corporal  punish- 
ment in  their  schools  of  their   own   accord,   with 


INFANT    SCHOOLS  183 

great  advantage  to  discipline.  I  once  visited  a 
school  incognito  in  the  island  of  Jersey,  which 
struck  me,  before  I  knew  that  no  corporal  punish- 
ment was  permitted  in  it,  as  one  of  the  most 
orderly  and  best  disciplined  I  had  ever  seen.  Lest 
the  reader  may  suppose  that  effeminacy  was  thereby 
encouraged,  I  may  mention  that  in  coming  round 
a  corner  of  the  road  after  leaving  the  school,  I 
came  upon  two  boys  engaged  in  a  good  stand-up 
fight  with  fists,  to  settle  some  point  of  friendly 
difference.  Some  School  Boards  and  Education 
authorities  have  already  prohibited  the  practice: 
it  is  strange  that  all  have  not  by  this  time  been 
compelled  to  do  so.  It  is  a  notable  example  of 
the  indifference  of  the  masses  of  the  people  to  their 
own  interests  that  they  elect  authorities  who  permit 
little  children  and  girls  to  be  beaten  by  school- 
masters and  mistresses  in  the  name  of  "  education." 
The  Board  of  Education  may  be  too  much  under 
the  influence  of  the  "  grown-up  public  school  boys" 
by  whom  we  are  governed  to  dare  to  prohibit 
flogging  in  schools  ;  but  I  marvel  that  a  spirit  of 
"  passive  resistance  "  has  not  been  evoked.  I  think 
that  if  a  little  girl  of  mine  had  been  beaten  by 
a  schoolmaster,  no  fine  and  no  imprisonment  would 
have  induced  me  to  send  her  to  that  school  again. 

Baby -rooms 

The  purposes  for  which  the  enforcement  of  dis- 
cipline is  required  in  an  infant  school  are  for  the 


184      THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

most  part  highly  deleterious  to  the  health  and 
development  of  young  children.  They  are  kept 
sitting  still  in  some  schools  for  as  much  as  an  hour 
at  a  time,  and  even  more.  This,  to  young  creatures 
bursting  with  the  desire  for  movement  in  every 
limb,  is  of  itself  torture,  even  when  not  enforced 
by  the  cane.  "In  all  infant  schools,"  says  Miss 
Munday,  one  of  the  women  inspectors,  "more 
time  is  spent  in  sitting  than  in  any  other  posture, 
though  if  children  of  3  to  5  years  of  age  be 
watched  when  quite  free,  this  is  the  posture  they 
will  use  least,  at  any  rate  in  the  morning."  They 
are  made  to  sit  with  their  arms  folded — a  position 
notoriously  injurious  to  a  young  child  of  3  years 
old.  No  provision  is  made  for  sleep,  which  is 
beneficial  and  even  necessary  at  this  age.  They 
slumber  as  they  can,  lying  in  a  corner  of  the  floor, 
sitting  with  their  arms  on  the  desk  and  their  heads 
pillowed  upon  them,  the  spine  twisted  meanwhile 
into  an  unnatural  curve.  Their  occupations  are 
physically  as  well  as  mentally  injurious,  being 
regulated  not  by  women  or  medical  men,  but  by 
man  inspectors  and  the  clerks  at  Whitehall. 
Writing  and  drawing  upon  ordinary  lined  or 
squared  foolscap  paper,  threading  and  sewing  with 
small  implements  in  dimly-lighted  corners,  are 
some  of  the  causes  to  which  the  prevalence  of 
defective  sight  in  older  children  may  properly  be 
attributed.  This  is  Miss  Munday's  description 
of  the  ordinary  babies'  room  :  "  The  furniture  of 
our   infant   babies'  room  still  chiefly  consists  of  a 


INFANT    SCHOOLS  185 

huge  gallery  constructed  to  hold  forty  to  sixty 
children,  but  often  containing  as  many  as  eighty 
at  the  end  of  the  educational  year,  or  if  classes 
have  to  be  put  together  owing  to  the  lack  of 
sufficiency  of  staff.  In  some  cases  the  gallery 
occupies  the  chief  amount  of  floor  space  of  the 
room,  to  say  nothing  of  the  accumulation  of  rubbish 
which  takes  place  on  the  floor  beneath,  generally 
un-get-at-able  to  floor-cleaners.  When  this  type 
of  baby-room  obtains,  the  class  can  have  little 
scope  or  space  for  movements  of  any  right  kind  ; 
and  if  the  school  has  no  hall,  or  has  a  hall  but  the 
baby  class  does  not  use  it,  as  is  too  often  the  case, 
the  children  suffer  physically  and  quite  unneces- 
sarily." When  it  is  remembered  that  numbers  of 
these  infants  are  allowed  to  come  to  school  with 
their  clothes  and  persons  filthy  and  verminous,  the 
agonies  of  a  clean  child,  crammed  with  eighty 
others  into  a  gallery  built  for  forty  to  sixty,  may 
be  imagined.  It  has  no  room  to  sit ;  it  is  over- 
whelmed with  the  horror  of  the  smell.  The  evil 
of  the  sitting  posture  is  further  aggravated  by  the 
form  of  the  seat  or  desk.  These  have  to  be  made 
of  one  pattern  to  fit  the  average  child.  But  the 
child  who  has  the  misfortune  not  to  be  at  the  time 
of  the  average  size  and  build,  may  of  necessity  have 
to  be  put  into  a  desk  too  small  for  it,  and  the  more 
it  grows  the  more  it  is  hurt  thereby.  Desks  are 
frequently  without  backs.  If  it  could  be  conceived 
that  the  President  of  the  Board  of  Education  could 
be  obliged  to  sit  in  a  desk  too  small  for  him  without 


186      THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

a  back,  amidst  eighty  dirty  men  brought  in  from  a 
casual  ward,  and  with  unsavoury  rubbish  heaped 
up  underneath,  until  the  baby-rooms  in  the  infant 
schools  were  improved,  a  much  more  rapid  reforma- 
tion would  undoubtedly  take  place. 


School  Offices 

The  school  "offices,"  as  the  places  are  now 
called  in  which  the  natural  wants  of  children  are 
relieved,  are  worse  in  infant  schools  than  in  the 
schools  for  older  children.  The  teachers  are  all 
women  ;  the  inspectors  are  all  men,  except  for  the 
brief  and  now  superseded  intervention  of  women 
inspectors.  The  former  have  a  natural  and  par- 
donable delicacy  in  discussing  such  matters  with 
men,  and  evils  accordingly  remain  undiscovered  and 
unremedied.  In  some  schools  these  places  are  too 
close  to  the  infants'  rooms.  One  case  is  mentioned 
in  the  Women  Inspectors'  Report,  in  which  the 
offices  for  all  departments  were  under  the  baby- 
room,  and  the  smell  came  through  the  floor.  In 
other  cases  the  baby-room  is  the  farthest  from  the 
offices,  necessitating  the  opening  and  closing  of 
sometimes  as  many  as  five  doors  when  the  children 
pass  in  and  out.  At  another  school  the  mistress 
of  an  infant  school  told  the  woman  inspector  that 
she  was  obliged  to  leave  the  door  from  the  street 
into  the  playground  unlocked  for  half  an  hour  after 
the  opening  of  the  school  to  admit  late-comers ; 
and  that  a  neighbouring  doss-house  where  tramps 


INFANT    SCHOOLS  187 

were  accommodated  took  advantage  of  this  fact 
and  used  the  offices  ;  the  little  children  came  back 
frightened  by  finding  the  tramps  inside  the  offices. 
While  the  mistress  was  speaking,  a  most  filthy  and 
low  class  of  tramp  crossed  the  playground  from  the 
offices  in  the  sight  of  the  woman  inspector,  on  his 
way  to  the  street. 


Infant  Nurseries 

If  the  State  is  to  continue  to  take  charge  of  little 
children  too  young  for  serious  instruction,  the 
whole  system  of  infant  schools,  as  at  present 
carried  on,  should  be  forthwith  abolished  ;  the 
State  would  then  at  least  cease  to  do  the  children 
positive  mischief.  The  places  in  which  they  were 
cared  for  should  be  modelled  on  the  idea  of  a 
nursery,  and  not  of  a  school.  They  should  be 
presided  over  by  a  woman,  selected  not  for  her 
intellectual  acquirements,  but  for  her  knowledge 
of  hygiene  and  medicine,  and  for  her  gentleness 
and  tenderness  to  little  children.  The  assistants 
should  be  women  of  the  same  character :  it  would 
be  a  legitimate  employment  for  thousands  of  young 
women  with  good  hearts  and  kind  manners,  but 
low  scholastic  attainments.  They  should  be 
inspected  exclusively  by  women.  The  Board  of 
Education  some  years  ago  tried  the  experiment 
of  appointing  half-a-dozen  women  inspectors,  but 
they  brought  to  light  so  many  defects  and  abuses 
in   the   schools,    which    no    office   manipulation   of 


188     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

their  reports  could  conceal,  that  they  have  now 
been  withdrawn,  and  the  infant  schools  are  again 
inspected  regularly  by  men,  mostly  ignorant  of  the 
wants  of  little  children.  They  should  be  under  the 
supervision  of  a  woman's  department  of  the  Board 
of  Education,  so  as  to  secure  that  woman's 
knowledge  will  no  longer  be  thwarted  by  man's 
ignorance.  The  children  should  be  kept  in  these 
nurseries  till  they  are  7  years  of  age,  and  then 
transferred  to  the  older  schools,  not  all  at  once,  but 
gradually  ;  at  first  for  a  few  hours  in  the  day  only, 
afterwards  for  increasing  periods,  till  by  the  time 
they  are  10  they  might  become  attendants  for  the 
full  five  hours  daily.  The  physical,  economical, 
and  educational  results  of  such  a  plan  would  be  a 
great  reform  upon  the  present  system  of  infant 
schools,  long  ago  condemned  but  still  unreformed. 


CHAPTER   XI 


SCHOOL    HYGIENE 


THE  most  ardent  defender  of  the  supposed 
interest  of  the  ratepayers  in  the  reduction 
of  all  social  expenditure  to  a  minimum  will  not 
deny  the  obligation  of  the  public  authority  to 
make  the  schools,  in  which  the  children  of  the 
nation  are  confined  for  five  hours  a  day  on  five 
days  in  the  week,  perfectly  sanitary.  This  obliga- 
tion, however,  is  very  imperfectly  fulfilled.  The 
first  thing  required  is  fresh  air.  If  you  take  the 
children  out  of  the  pure  air  of  the  country,  or 
even  the  less  healthy  air  of  the  streets  and  parks 
of  towns,  you  must  take  care  not  to  put  them 
into  air  unfit  to  breathe  in  your  school. 

Ventilation 

In  the  building  of  new  schools,  all  the  plans 
have  to  be  submitted  to  and  passed  by  the  Board 
of  Education  before  the  school  can  be  recognised 
as    a    public     elementary     school.      The  greatest 

care  is  now  taken  to  have  the  structural  provision 

189 


190     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

for  ventilation  as  perfect  as  the  progress  of 
science  suggests.  Formerly  there  was  less  care 
and  less  knowledge,  and  some  of  the  older  schools, 
especially  village  schools,  built  before  fresh  air 
was  so  much  appreciated,  are  very  defective  in 
construction  and  can  never  be  made  fit  for  the 
reception  of  large  numbers  of  children.  But  it 
is  not  from  the  construction  of  buildings,  it  is 
from  the  refusal  of  teachers,  managers,  and  in- 
spectors to  make  proper  use  of  the  ventilation 
provided  that  the  chief  evils  of  foul  air  and 
consequent  injury  to  the  school  children  arise. 
Objection  to  fresh  air,  under  the  name  of 
"  draughts/'  is  very  widely  spread.  Any  traveller, 
young  or  old,  male  or  female,  who  alleges  that 
he  or  she  feels  a  draught  in  a  railway  carriage 
considers  this  a  sufficient  ground  for  insisting  on 
every  window  and  every  ventilator  being  at  once 
closed.  The  shrinking  from  fresh  air  is  not 
confined  to  the  ignorant.  The  British  Associa- 
tion has  met  in  an  elementary  schoolroom  to 
discuss  hygiene,  with  windows  closed  and  in  an 
atmosphere  which  if  existing  in  the  room  when 
used  for  its  normal  purposes  would  have  justified 
the  withdrawal  of  the  Exchequer  grant.  At  a 
meeting  for  promoting  Garden  Cities  an  eminent 
doctor  illustrated  the  badness  of  the  air  in  the 
slums  by  assuring  his  audience  that  it  was  almost 
as  bad  as  that  which  they  were  themselves 
breathing.  Windows  in  country  cottages  are 
often  made  not  to  open,   and  any  one  who  looks 


SCHOOL    HYGIENE  191 

at  the  houses  as  he  passes  through  a  village  will 
generally    see    every   window    shut,    summer   and 
winter.     Modern    improvements   in  house-building 
have,    in  truth,  made  matters   worse  :    doors    and 
windows    shut    more    closely,    and    the    fresh    air 
that   forced   its   way   indoors   through  chinks  and 
crevices     is     now     effectually     excluded.        The 
careful    planning    of    school    ventilation    is    made 
of  no  effect  by  the  objection  of  all  concerned  to 
draughts    of  fresh  air,  the    intake   is    blocked  up, 
and   the    children    do    their    work    in    a    vitiated 
atmosphere.     Some  years  ago  there  was  a  scientific 
inquiry   into   the   condition   of  the   atmosphere  in 
schools  in  Manchester   and  Salford  conducted  by 
Dr.    Bayley,    of    Owen's   College.     He    classified 
the  schools  examined  into   five   classes   according 
to  the  degree  of  foul  air  and  smell  which  prevailed 
in   them.     No   schools  rose  to  the  first  or  second 
class.      There  were  only  two    in    the  third   class, 
and    in    them    the   class-rooms   were    reported   to 
have   "  air  very  oppressive,   giving  rise   to   head- 
ache."      In    other    schools,    M  the    odour    in    the 
class-rooms    especially    was    simply    unbearable." 
The     air     was    tested    for    carbonic    acid.      The 
standard    accepted    in    the   wards   of  hospitals   is 
that  if  there  are  more  than   6  parts  in    10,000  of 
carbonic  acid  gas    the  air  is  regarded  as  polluted 
and   unfit   for  the   patients   to   breathe.     Not  one 
of  the  schools  examined  came  within  the  unpolluted 
zone.     In  the  best  school  there  were  7    parts  in 
10,000,  and   10  in  the  class-rooms  :    in    the    worst 


192     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

12*8  parts  in  10,000,  and  14*5  in  the  class-rooms. 
The  air  was  also  tested  for  micro-organisms. 
Pure  mountain  air  is  quite  free  from  micro- 
organisms, and  air  in  the  streets  of  Paris  contains 
only  25  per  cubic  foot,  whereas  it  was  found  in 
one  of  the  Salford  schools  examined  that  in  the 
infant  school  there  were  213;  in  the  boys'  school, 
236  ;  and  in  the  girls'  school,  286.  In  many  town 
schools  there  is  now  excellent  ventilation,  but 
many  are  still  in  the  condition  in  which  Man- 
chester schools  were  when  examined  by  Dr. 
Bayley.  In  the  country,  especially,  where  there 
is  the  best  of  air  all  round  the  schools  waiting 
to  be  let  in,  the  air  which  the  children  are  made 
to  breathe  is  atrociously  bad.  The  Royal  Com- 
mission on  Physical  Training  in  Scotland  called 
attention  to  the  too  frequent  neglect  of  the  proper 
ventilation  of  schoolrooms.  "It  is  often  found," 
they  say,  "  that,  even  in  large  and  well-con- 
structed rooms,  the  atmosphere  is  allowed  to  get 
into  a  condition  that  must  be  detrimental  to  health, 
and  this  is  much  more  marked  where  the  school- 
rooms are  inadequate  to  the  attendance,  and 
where  they  are  not  provided  with  proper  means 
of  ventilation."  Dr.  Kerr,  who  had  a  very  long 
experience  as  medical  officer  first  of  the  Bradford 
and  then  of  the  London  School  Board,  says,  "Prac- 
tically all  schools  are  defective  in  point  of  venti- 
lation." He  further  declares  that  schools  "are 
generally  not  either  healthy,  or  well  ventilated. 
At  present  there  is  nothing  like  hygienic  inspection 


SCHOOL    HYGIENE  193 

of  schools  by  the  Board  of  Education."  The  whole 
of  this  evil  state  of  things  can  be  immediately  cor- 
rected by  teachers  and  managers  themselves,  and 
would  be  if  they  practised  what  they  would  all 
admit  in  theory,  that  fresh  air  is  an  indispensable 
necessity  for  children.  "As  regards  fresh  air," 
says  Dr.  Eichholz,  "  I  suffer  a  good  deal  from  what 
I  am  compelled  to  encounter  on  my  visits  round 
the  schools.  I  constantly  begin  my  work  in  a 
class-room  by  opening  the  windows.  I  consider 
a  draught  of  less  importance  than  the  constant 
inhalation  of  fetid,  vitiated  air.  I  have  seldom 
come  across  any  evils  of  ventilation  in  a  school 
that  could  not  be  altered  in  five  minutes.  If  the 
windows  are  not  open,  you  can  open  them  ;  and 
the  children  can  be  cleared  out  of  the  room  if 
necessary.  The  draught  is  not  a  real  objection,  but 
is  often  an  excuse  for  tolerating  irrespirable  air." 

Warming 

In  Ireland  the  Education  Board  does  not 
pretend  to  warm  all  the  schools  at  the  public 
expense.  It  was  stated  in  evidence  by  Dr.  Kelly, 
the  Bishop  of  Ross,  and  repeated  in  the  House 
of  Commons  without  contradiction,  that  the  plan 
is  to  require  the  children  to  bring  a  turf  or  two 
under  their  arms  when  they  come  in  the  morning 
as  a  provision  for  keeping  up  a  fire  during  the 
day.  This  fact  shocked  the  Committee  on 
Physical  Deterioration,  for  in  Great  Britain  nobody 
would   think    of  warming   the   schools    by   a    tax 


194      THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

of  this  kind   levied  from  the  children  ;  but  in  the 
desire  to  keep  down    expenditure  there  is  always 
a   temptation    to    managers    to    stint   the   amount 
of  firing  and  warm  the  school  more   economically 
by   the   children's   bodies.     It  is  the  necessity  for 
warmth  that  is  the  chief  cause  of  the  bad  ventila- 
tion  we   have  just   been  considering.     It    is   less 
painful    to    be    asphyxiated   in    foul   air    than    to 
endure  the  pangs  of  cold  in  fresh.     "  The  question 
of  ventilation,"   says  the    Report   of  the   Scottish 
Royal  Commission,   "is  a  difficult  one,  and  some- 
times  it    is    found     that    the    most    modern    and 
carefully   constructed    systems  are  not  satisfactory 
in   operation,    owing  to    the    want  of  expert   skill 
on    the    part   of  those    in    charge   of  them.       But 
it  is  at  least  certain  that,    while    ventilation   of  a 
fairly  satisfactorily  kind  may  be  provided  in  any 
properly    constructed   school    at   a    comparatively 
moderate   expense,    this   must   be   combined   with 
proper  methods  of  heating.     Where  a  schoolroom 
is    not   sufficiently   heated,   it   is   plain   that   on   a 
cold    day    windows,    and    indeed   every   aperture 
by  which  air  is  normally  admitted,  are  kept  almost 
hermetically   closed,    so   that    good    ventilation   is 
practically    impossible."     Dr.    Smith,  of  the    East 
London  Children's  Hospital,  describing  the  homes 
of  children  in  that  part  of  London,  says  the  housing 
arrangements   are    awful,    the   whole    family   often 
sleeping   in   one    room.     For  warmth,    as   a   rule, 
they  keep  all  the  windows  shut.     The  atmosphere 
is    shocking.       They    can    only    afford    one    room. 


SCHOOL    HYGIENE  195 

I  don't  see  what  the  Medical  Officer  of  Health 
can  do  really."  Another  medical  witness  says, 
"  Children  should  be  properly  clothed  and  should 
be  housed  in  pure  warmth,  not  the  shut-up  window 
and  the  heated  lamp,  which  are  so  often  the 
sole  way  in  which  the  warmth  is  produced  among 
the  lower  classes."  The  poor  in  the  slums  can 
only  warm  their  children  by  shutting  them  up 
in  a  polluted  atmosphere  :  but  it  is  monstrous  that 
the  Education  Boards  and  authorities  either 
in  Ireland  or  Great  Britain  should  have  recourse 
to  similar  expedients.  All  schools  should  be 
adequately  warmed  at  the  public  cost,  as  well  as 
properly  ventilated.  Miss  Bathurst,  a  woman 
inspector  of  schools,  in  the  Report  of  the  Women 
Inspectors  before  referred  to  says,  "  Thermometers 
are  often  omitted  from  school  furniture,  but  I 
remember  several  instances  of  schools  where 
the  thermometer  registered  down  to  3  2°  in 
cold  weather."  A  school  is  mentioned  where  the 
children  sometimes  cried  with  cold.  "  It  is 
customary  to  delay  lighting  fires  till  late  in  the 
autumn."  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  important 
that  fires  in  schools  should  be  protected  by  fire- 
guards. "  For  lack  of  them,"  says  the  same 
inspector,  "  accidents  have  occurred  in  two  schools 
on  my  list.  In  both  cases  the  managers  had 
ignored  the  strongest  possible  recommendations 
in  log-books.  It  is  habitual  to  allow  children 
to  have  their  midday  meal  unsupervised  inside 
the  school  premises.     I  have  found  children  alone 


196      THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

at  midday  with  an  unguarded  tortoise  stove."  In 
a  school  in  Cheshire,  recently  visited  by  Mr.  T. 
C.  Horsfall,  he  says,  "Not  only  were  the  rooms 
badly  lighted  and  miserably  ventilated,  but  also 
so  badly  heated  that  the  temperatures  taken  by  a 
thermometer  whose  accuracy  I  tested  have  been 
at  10  a.m.  on  four  successive  days  430,  42°  450, 
and  450.  Most  of  the  children  and  of  the  teachers 
looked  sickly." 

Water 

A  healthy  child  constantly  wants  to  drink,  and  it  is 
most  desirable  for  its  health  that  abundant  draughts 
of  pure  water  should  be  easily  within  its  reach. 
This  is  generally  provided  in  the  newly-built  schools 
in  large  towns,  which  have  invariably  an  excellent 
water  supply.  But  in  country  schools  good  water 
fit  to  drink  is  not  so  easily  procured.  A  child  that 
cannot  get  pure  water  will  quench  its  thirst  with 
foul.  Evidence  was  given  in  the  Poor  Law  Schools 
Inquiry  in  1895,  that  at  a  certain  workhouse  school 
there  was  no  provision  by  which  the  children  could 
obtain  water  to  drink,  and  that  they  drank  from 
puddles  in  the  school-yard.  In  many  places  rain- 
water seems  the  only  source  possible.  But  unless 
the  tanks  in  which  rain-water  is  stored  are  con- 
stantly cleaned  out,  the  water  soon  becomes  polluted 
and  is  the  cause  of  sore  throats  and  other  ailments. 
No  school  can  be  considered  fit  for  the  reception  of 
children  unless  there  is  a  provision  of  good  water 
within  the  reach  of  every  child. 


SCHOOL    HYGIENE  197 

Lighting 

In  many  schools  no  proper  attention  is  paid  to 
light.  The  desks  are  so  placed  that  the  children 
have  to  sit  facing  the  light,  staring  into  it.  The 
new  building  rules  of  the  Board  of  Education 
provide  for  the  proper  lighting  of  schools,  but  a 
great  proportion  of  our  schools  were  built  before 
the  importance  of  proper  lighting  was  appreciated. 
In  many  cases  an  alteration  of  the  arrangement  of 
the  desks  would  effect  a  great  improvement  and  save 
the  children's  eyesight.  A  great  deal  of  the  teach- 
ing is  done  by  means  of  words  and  figures  written 
on  a  blackboard  :  blue  instead  of  white  chalk  is 
often  used,  to  the  great  injury  of  the  children's  eyes. 
Besides  this  the  undue  size  of  the  classes  obliges  a 
number  to  be  seated  at  the  side ;  to  these  every- 
thing drawn  on  the  blackboard  is  foreshortened 
and  strains  the  eyesight,  and  to  some  so  much 
that  it  is  impossible  to  decipher  what  is  drawn. 

Desks 

The  effect  of  school  life  in  promoting  curvature 
of  the  spine  has  never  been  sufficiently  understood 
in  this  country.  Mr.  T.  C.  Horsfall  called  the 
attention  of  the  Committee  on  Physical  Deterioration 
to  some  startling  facts  which  scientific  investigation 
in  Germany  and  Switzerland  has  disclosed.  There 
are  no  infant  schools  in  these  countries  ;  but  in  a 
number  of  schools  examined  by  Bardenheuer  and 


198      THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

Castenholz  it  was  found  that  while  there  was  no 
appreciable  curvature  of  the  spine  among  children 
in  their  first  school  year,  that  is,  from  6  to  7,  6  per 
cent,  of  those  in  their  second  year,  19  per  cent,  of 
those  in  their  third,  27  per  cent,  of  those  in  their 
fourth,  and  52  per  cent,  of  those  in  their  fifth  and 
sixth,  suffered  from  curvature.  In  Lausanne,  an 
examination  of  upwards  of  1,000  boys  and  1,000  girls 
by  Scholder,  Weith,  and  Combe  disclosed  the  fact 
that  23  per  cent,  of  the  boys  and  267  per  cent,  of 
the  girls  had  curvature  of  the  spine.  The  number 
of  cases  increased  rapidly  as  the  length  of  time 
passed  in  school  increased,  till  nearly  the  end  of 
school  life.  Dr.  Wilhelm  Schultheiss,  of  Zurich, 
indicates  as  the  means  needed  to  counteract  the 
tendency  of  school  to  cause  curvature  of  the  spine, 
a  considerable  shortening  of  the  time  during  which 
children  are  compelled  to  sit,  the  giving  an  interval 
for  play  every  hour,  systematic  gymnastic  exercise 
for  an  hour  each  day,  the  proper  lighting  of  school- 
rooms, and  the  provision  of  proper  school  benches 
and  desks.  I  have  seen  in  schools  in  Bradford  a 
praiseworthy  attempt  to  mitigate  the  physical  mis- 
chief that  may  be  caused  by  the  desk  and  the 
scholar  not  fitting  each  other.  The  desks  in  a  class- 
room are  made  not  of  uniform  size  but  graded  from 
front  to  back — the  smaller  in  front,  the  larger  behind. 
On  each  is  printed  the  height  of  boy  or  girl  for 
which  that  particular  bench  is  designed.  The 
teacher  sorts  the  class  so  that  each  scholar,  as  far  as 
possible,  sits  upon  a  bench  suitable  to  his  or  her  size. 


SCHOOL    HYGIENE  199 

Similar  arrangements  are  to  be  found  in  most 
schools  on  the  Continent :  they  cannot,  of  course,  be 
perfect,  but  they  are  at  least  a  great  improvement 
on  the  common  practice  of  fitting  all  the  class  into 
desks  of  the  same  size.  The  German  Army  statistics 
confirm  the  view  that  school  life  is  not  favourable 
to  physical  development.  The  young  men  who 
have  a  longer  and  higher  education  and  pass  the 
Leaving  Examination  are  entitled  to  serve  as  one- 
year  volunteers  :  of  them  only  20  per  cent,  pass 
as  physically  fit  for  military  service.  Of  the 
ordinary  recruits  who,  as  less  highly  educated,  have 
to  serve  for  three  years,  50  to  55  per  cent,  are  passed 
as  efficient. 

Playgrounds 

Playgrounds  attached  to  the  schools,  and  recrea- 
tion grounds  to  which  children  can  resort  on  holi- 
days and  summer  evenings,  are  most  essential  for 
healthy  development.  Sir  Lauder  Brunton  would 
make  the  provision  of  playgrounds  in  all  schools 
compulsory.  In  the  centre  of  great  cities  the 
enormous  price  of  land  makes  this  almost  an 
impossibility  unless  the  playground  is  placed  on  the 
school  roof  as  is  done  in  many  cases.  In  country 
places  where  land  is  cheap  playgrounds  are  less 
necessary,  though  it  is  in  those  places  that  the 
provision  of  playgrounds  is  most  zealously  insisted 
on  by  the  Board  of  Education.  I  recollect  a  school 
in  Westmoreland  which  opened  upon  the  side  of  a 
mountain,  where  a  fenced  playground  was  neverthe- 


200     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

less  required.  Sir  Lauder  Brunton  thought  it  was 
easier  to  secure  the  provision  of  playgrounds  through 
a  voluntary  association  than  through  the  State. 
"  The  State  as  a  rule  shunts  everything  upon 
voluntary  work  that  can  be  shunted.  But  the 
necessity  of  having  playgrounds  is  very  great,  and 
I  think  we  should  get  playgrounds  provided  as 
soon  as  possible.  If  these  things  cannot  be  done 
voluntarily,  then  we  must  get  the  State  to  do  it ;  we 
must  have  compulsory  powers."  A  suggestion  was 
made  by  the  Royal  Commission  on  Physical  Train- 
ing in  Scotland,  that  an  appeal  should  be  made 
to  football  clubs,  cross-country  running  clubs,  and 
other  like  associations  to  organise  games  for 
elementary  school  children,  quite  of  a  different 
kind  from  formal  drill  and  running  about  in  the 
school-yard ;  and  it  was  thought  that  they  might 
lend  their  own  private  grounds  on  certain  days  for 
the  purpose.  In  the  United  States  special  provision 
is  made  in  the  parks  and  open  spaces  in  cities  for 
children's  play,  such  as  is  now  attempted  in  London 
and  other  great  cities.  Paid  attendants,  men  and 
women,  are  employed  by  the  Municipalities,  who 
have  experience  of  kindergarten  methods  to  organise 
and  superintend  the  children's  play.  Municipalities 
in  this  country  have  power,  under  the  Public  Health 
Acts,  to  incur  such  expense  ;  but  like  many  other 
provisions  of  the  Public  Health  Acts  the  power  is 
seldom  used.  In  Salford,  where  there  are  42,000 
school  children,  of  whom  15,000  are  of  the  poorest 
class,  it  is  said  that  they  have  forgotten  how  to  play. 


SCHOOL    HYGIENE  201 

They  are  stunted,  underfed  weaklings.  "  It  will 
take  three  boys  from  Salford,"  said  a  witness,  "and 
from  that  type  of  school  to  make  two  Rugby  boys. 
The  figures  are  there,  I  have  original  measure- 
ments." 

In  a  small  country  town  like  Chippenham  we  are 
told  by  another  witness  that  the  children  have  no 
recreation  ground  at  all ;  only  one  school  has  a 
playground;  they  have  no  place  except  in  the 
streets  and  roads.  There  is  a  good  deal  of  traffic 
in  the  main  streets  of  Chippenham.  The  best 
common  land  is  now  enclosed,  and  it  is  not  allowed 
to  be  used  at  all ;  it  is  in  the  hands  of  the  burgesses 
— a  certain  number  of  good  people  who  will  not  let 
the  children  play — and  there  is  no  other  grass  near. 
The  school-yard,  even  when  provided,  is  not  enough 
for  the  proper  development  of  physical  activity.  The 
children  require  games.  These  can  be  provided  by 
the  Municipal  authority  in  the  parks  and  open 
spaces  which  they  already  possess.  Attendants  are 
necessary,  whom  the  Municipality  has  already 
power  to  pay.  No  legislation  is  required,  only 
proper  administration  of  powers  already  possessed. 
If  the  mass  of  the  people  had  an  enlightened  care 
for  the  welfare  of  their  little  ones  and  used  their 
electoral  power,  the  reform  needed  would  speedily 
be  accomplished. 


CHAPTER  XII 


PHYSICAL   TRAINING 


Its  Conditions 


THE  physical  training  of  Children  in  the 
public  elementary  schools  is  highly  ap- 
proved of  by  the  governing  classes :  it  will  make 
better  soldiers,  better  servants,  and  better  workmen. 
But  the  conditions  under  which  alone  such  training 
can  be  given  are  sedulously  ignored.  So  long 
as  a  large  proportion  of  school  children  are 
underfed,  underclothed,  and  in  a  miserable  physical 
condition,  any  attempt  to  make  them  perform 
physical  exercises  is  merely  an  additional  act  of 
cruelty.  It  is  not  more  cruel  than  making  them 
exert  their  emaciated,  undeveloped  brains  in  efforts 
to  learn  and  remember,  but  the  cruelty  is  rather 
more  patent  to  the  unthinking  mind.  However 
we  may  shut  our  eyes  to  the  waste  of  tissue 
involved  in  exercise  of  the  brain,  no  medical 
testimony  is  required  to  establish  the  necessity 
of  feeding  children  before  exercising  their  muscles  ; 
the  recommendation  made  to  the  Royal  Commis- 
sion   on    Physical    Training   in    Scotland    by    Dr. 


PHYSICAL    TRAINING  203 

Mackenzie  and  Professor  Matthew  Hay,  who  had 
been  employed  to  sample  the  children  in  the 
Edinburgh  and  Aberdeen  schools  is  conclusive — 
M  Physical  exercise,  unsupported  by  adequate  food 
and  adequate  clothing,  must  result  in  early  physio- 
logical exhaustion  and  infirmity."  In  this,  as 
in  all  other  branches  of  education,  we  are  face 
to  face  with  the  dilemma  which  the  Board  of 
Education,  the  Government,  and  the  governing 
classes,  persist  in  trying  to  evade — Are  all  the 
children  in  the  schools  to  be  subjected  to  physical 
drill,  and  is  a  gross  act  of  cruelty  to  be  thus 
perpetrated  by  public  authority  upon  a  large 
proportion  ?  or  is  a  system  of  selection  to  be 
established,  whereby  those  only  who  are  fit  will 
be  subjected  to  drill  and  the  rest  sent  back  hungry 
to  their  homes? 


Military  Drill 

The  first  idea  in  this  country  was  that  the  drill 
in  public  elementary  schools  should  be  military. 
The  governing  classes  see  the  need  of  breeding 
stout,  well-developed  youths  as  recruits  for  the 
Army,  on  the  strength  of  which  their  power  of 
intervention  in  foreign  affairs  so  largely  depends. 
Compulsory  military  service  at  17  or  18 
years  of  age  is  politically  impossible  ;  our 
rulers  would  gladly  have  it  if  they  could ;  but 
as  they  cannot  they  fall  back  upon  the  little 
boys   in    the    elementary    schools   of    whom    they 


204      THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

have  the  control,  and  desire  to  drill  them  as 
soldiers  and  teach  them  to  handle  a  rifle.  They 
make  just  the  same  mistake  as  that  made  in  all 
other  branches  of  useful  knowledge  and  practice 
which  it  is  desired  to  engraft  upon  the  coming  race. 
If  time  and  opportunity  cannot  be  afforded  when 
the  young  person  is  old  enough  to  learn,  it  is 
impossible  to  compensate  for  this  by  prematurely 
forcing  the  instruction  on  undeveloped  children. 
Nearly  all  the  scholars  in  the  public  schools  are 
of  tender  age;  many  leave  school  at  12;  they 
have  weak  bones,  their  muscles  are  not  fully 
formed,  and  the  only  kind  of  drill  which  is 
known  to  military  sergeants — very  beneficial,  no 
doubt,  to  a  stout  ploughboy,  fresh  from  agricultural 
labour — is  utterly  unsuitable  to  the  weak  and 
growing  frames  of  these  little  children.  Girls  as 
well  as  boys  have  to  be  drilled  at  schools ;  more 
than  half  the  children  are  girls.  Drill  sergeants 
have  no  special  knowledge  of  the  muscular  anatomy 
of  girls,  nor  even  of  how  they  are  dressed ;  you 
cannot  provide  gymnasium  suits  for  all  the  children 
in  the  elementary  schools,  and  their  common,  every- 
day dress  limits  the  benefit  of  bodily  motions  in 
general  school  drill.  In  many  country  schools 
children  have  to  walk  long  distances  from  their 
home :  the  muscular  exertion  they  have  in  their 
walk  to  and  fro  is  physical  exercise  enough  for 
the  day,  and  to  put  further  strain  upon  bodies  not 
too  abundantly  nourished  is  cruel  and  unreasonable. 
In   the   first   syllabus    of   Physical   Drill  put  forth 


PHYSICAL    TRAINING  205 

for  the  guidance  and  instruction  of  school  teachers 
and  managers  by  the  Board  of  Education  a 
year  or  two  ago,  as  the  outcome  of  the  labours 
of  a  committee  of  men,  the  existence  of  girls  was 
ignored  and  the  physical  exercises  prescribed  were 
identical  with  those  used  at  military  depots  for 
licking  into  shape  the  raw  recruits.  It  was  uni- 
versally admitted  to  be  entirely  inapplicable  to 
school  children  and  was  immediately  withdrawn 
in  deference  to  public  and  professional  criticism. 
Nothing  would  be  more  calculated  to  defeat  the 
desire  of  the  governing  classes  for  soldiers  than 
the  establishment  of  military  drill  in  elementary 
schools.  Almost  every  boy  desires  at  some  period 
of  his  life  to  be  a  soldier,  and  an  extraordinary 
charm  surrounds  the  idea  of  military  drill  until  it 
has  been  experienced.  But  actually  to  undergo 
military  drill  has  a  very  disenchanting  effect, 
especially  in  early  youth  ;  and  if  military  drill  were 
imposed  on  boys  even  of  14  or  15  years  of 
age,  it  would  disgust  them  prematurely  with 
militarism  altogether,  and  when  they  were  17  or 
18  years  old  they  would  be  much  less  likely  to 
join  even  the  Volunteers.  The  Peace  Society 
should  encourage  military  drill  in  the  public 
elementary  schools. 

Swedish  Drill 

A    great    deal   of    attention   has   been   paid   in 
foreign  countries  to  the  proper  system  of  physical 


206      THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

training  for  growing  children,  especially  in  Swit- 
zerland and  Sweden.  In  the  latter  country  a 
system  has  been  established  on  scientific  principles, 
the  object  of  which  is  the  due  development  of 
all  the  muscles  of  the  human  body,  including,  for 
instance,  the  muscles  of  the  lungs  by  breathing 
exercises.  The  Swedish  system  of  drill  has  been 
carried  to  great  perfection  ;  there  are  college  pro- 
fessors and  teachers  devoted  to  the  inculcation  and 
advancement  of  this  kind  of  scientific  training. 
Before  such  a  system  our  military  drill  is  a  piece 
of  primitive  barbarism.  Many  of  the  elementary 
teachers  in  our  schools  in  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland  have  devoted  both  time  and  money 
to  the  study  and  acquisition  of  the  method 
of  Swedish  drill,  and  persons  interested  in 
education  have  visited  Sweden  for  the  purpose 
of  acquainting  themselves  with  it.  After  the 
withdrawal  of  the  first  syllabus  of  the  Board 
of  Education,  a  committee  was  appointed  to  draw 
up  a  new  and  more  rational  syllabus,  on  which 
a  woman  was  for  the  first  time  placed — Miss 
Deverell,  one  of  the  women  inspectors.  She  was 
sent  over  to  Sweden  by  the  Board  of  Education 
to  study  the  system  of  Swedish  drill ;  and  the 
result  of  the  labours  of  the  committee  was  the 
adoption  of  a  new  syllabus,  founded  upon  the 
Swedish  system,  which  has  given  general  satis- 
faction to  managers  and  teachers,  and  is  now 
practised  in  elementary  schools  to  the  great 
advantage  of  the  children.     The  physique  of  the 


PHYSICAL    TRAINING  207 

girls  is  not  neglected,  and  the  boys  enjoy  a 
kind  of  training  that  will  fit  them  better  than 
military  drill  to  become  soldiers,  if  their  services 
are  required  in  that  capacity  when  they  grow  up 
to  manhood. 


Jiu-jitsu 

But  a  much  more  remarkable  system  of  physical 
exercise  not  yet  generally  introduced  into  our 
schools  has  come  to  us  from  our  new  Eastern  allies, 
the  Japanese.  The  system  is  applicable  alike  to 
boys  and  girls,  to  men  and  women,  to  the  weak 
and  to  the  strong.  "  From  remote  antiquity  "  (I 
quote  from  Mr.  H.  Irving  Hancock's  Book  on 
Physical  Training  for  Women  by  Japanese  Methods), 
u  there  has  existed  in  Japan  a  system  of  bodily 
training  known  as  Jiu-jitsu.  Its  age  is  established 
by  reasonably  authentic  records  as  being  at  least 
twenty-five  hundred  years  ;  undoubtedly  the  science 
is  older  than  that.  In  feudal  Japan  knowledge  of 
the  science  was  imparted  only  to  the  Samurai,  and 
only  under  the  strongest  oaths  of  secrecy.  The 
Samurai  were  the  men  and  women  of  the  privileged 
military  class.  The  men  did  the  fighting,  but  the 
women,  who  were  to  rear  the  '  sons '  of  the  next 
generation,  were  required  to  understand  all  the 
principles  of  Jiu-jitsu.  In  the  initial  stages  of  the 
training  it  was  considered  always  advisable  to  have 
a  boy  and  girl  contestant  as  nearly  equal  in  age 
and  height  as  was  possible,  but  the  girls  entered 


208      THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

the  arena  upon  equal  terms  with  the  boys,  and 
proved  their  fitness  to  do  so.  Grown  men  and 
women  practised  at  Jiu-jitsu,  nor  did  any  woman 
find  it  necessary  to  take  refuge  in  her  sex.  She 
did  not  need  to.  Other  conditions  being  equal, 
she  could  show  an  amount  of  strength  that  paralleled 
that  of  her  husband  or  brother."  The  science  of 
Jiu-jitsu,  so  long  kept  secret  by  the  Samurai,  is  now 
open  to  and  practised  by  the  whole  of  Japan  and 
it  will  at  no  distant  date  modify  the  gymnastic 
exercises  of  the  civilised  world.  It  is  practised 
without  gymnastic  apparatus  by  pairs  of  students, 
each  acting  as  a  gymnastic  apparatus  to  the  other. 
It  qualifies  every  student  to  be  a  wrestler,  but  the 
due  development  of  every  muscle  in  the  human 
body  is  the  object  and  result  of  the  exercises  pre- 
scribed. These  consist  of  attacks  by  each  student 
in  turn  upon  the  muscles  of  the  other,  which  are 
resisted  just  enough  to  make  the  accomplishment  of 
the  exercise  physically  difficult.  It  is  not  necessary 
that  the  two  should  be  of  the  same  strength,  pro- 
vided the  stronger  restrains  his  muscular  power 
sufficiently  to  allow  the  weaker  to  overcome  when 
it  is  his  turn  to  do  so.  After  the  physical  powers 
displayed  by  the  Japanese  in  the  war  with  Russia, 
it  is  probable  that  even  military  authorities  will 
look  favourably  upon  Jiu-jitsu.  It  is  difficult  to 
imagine  a  system  of  training  more  fitted  for  school 
children.  It  requires  no  extensive  gymnasium, 
no  expensive  gymnastic  apparatus ;  it  can  be 
practised  in  the  open  air,  in  a  shed  in  the  school- 


PHYSICAL    TRAINING  209 

yard,  in  the  hall  or  in  a  class-room  of  the  school 
itself.  It  has  been  tried  experimentally,  as  I  was 
informed  by  the  headmaster  at  a  large  higher 
grade  school  in  the  North  of  England,  and  the 
children  liked  the  exercises  very  much. 


General  Requirements 

All  physical  exercise  of  whatever  kind  should 
if  possible  be  performed  in  the  open  air  or,  in  wet 
weather,  under  an  open  shed.  Very  well-ventilated 
rooms  with  open  windows  may  do  occasionally  as 
a  makeshift,  but  it  is  better  not  to  have  any  physical 
exercises  at  all  than  to  give  them  in  a  stuffy,  closed- 
up  schoolroom.  The  dust  in  rooms  from  which 
air  and  sunshine  are  excluded  contain  countless 
germs  of  disease  ;  these  would  be  raised  by  the 
shuffling  of  the  children's  feet,  and  if  inhaled  by 
them  sore  throat,  bronchitis,  or  even  phthisis  might 
be  the  result.  Attention  should  also  be  paid  to  the 
manner  in  which  children  are  dressed  while  per- 
forming physical  exercises,  and  such  modification 
of  their  clothes  as  is  practicable  should  be  carried 
out  by  the  teacher.  Feet  bare  or  in  stockings  only 
are  much  better  than  heavy,  ill-fitting  boots  or  shoes. 
Stays  on  girls'  bodies  would  make  even  the  most 
scientific  exercises  harmful.  Nor  should  any 
exercises  of  a  strenuous  kinds  be  permitted  in  any 
case  without  proper  medical  supervision.  If  no 
proper  medical  inspection  is  available,  it  is  better 
to  remit   altogether   all   violent   exercises  than   to 


210      THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

run  the  risk  of  injury  to  the  children  thereby. 
Every  school,  even  those  frequented  by  children 
of  well-paid  artizans,  contain  numbers,  unsuspected 
by  teachers  or  parents,  who  are  suffering  from 
phthisis  or  heart  disease,  to  whom  physical  drill 
should  be  prohibited  as  injurious  and  even  dangerous 
to  life.  In  some  infant  schools  little  children  are 
allowed  to  go  through  dumb-bell  exercises  for 
which  the  tender  muscles  of  their  baby  arms  are 
wholly  unfit.  One  of  the  great  advantages  of  Jiu- 
jitsu  is  the  impossibility  of  this  overstrain.  In 
Japan  physical  training  begins  from  birth,  and  the 
exercises  are  practised  without  risk  at  4  or  5  years 
old. 

Neglect  of  Physical  Training 

Neither  in  the  elementary  nor  in  the  higher 
schools  of  Great  Britain  is  adequate  attention  paid 
to  physical  education.  There  is  a  general  lack  of 
qualification  in  the  teachers  of  both  classes  of  schools 
to  teach  and  supervise  proper  exercises,  and  no 
sufficient  energy  is  shown  in  the  training  colleges 
to  supply  this  deficiency.  The  residential  colleges 
seem  doomed  to  soon  disappear,  and  in  the  day 
collegiate  institutions  which  are  taking  their  place 
the  necessity  of  a  teacher  being  competent  to  give 
physical  as  well  as  mental  instruction  is  scarcely 
yet  recognised.  In  higher  class  schools  complaint 
is  often  made  that  too  much  attention  is  paid  to 
games  ;.  the  complaint  seems  to  be  in  too  many 
cases  just,  but  it  is  to  games  and  not  to  physical 


PHYSICAL    TRAINING  211 

development  that  the  encouragement  of  the  school 
authority  is  directed.  The  curriculum  of  the  elemen- 
tary schools  and  of  those  higher  schools  which 
receive  Government  grants  is  practically  at  the 
discretion  of  the  Board  of  Education,  and  they 
could  secure  a  proper  devotion  of  time  to  physical 
training  by  an  alteration  in  their  codes  and  regu- 
lations. But  a  great  deal  of  the  time  now  spent 
on  grammar  and  other  useless  attainments  would 
have  to  be  given  up.  More  capacity  and  knowledge 
would,  no  doubt,  in  the  end  be  acquired  by  the 
children,  but  old  habits  of  teaching  and  antiquated 
prejudices  so  dear  to  the  conservative  British  mind 
would  have  to  be  given  up. 

In  the  elementary  schools  proper  playgrounds 
in  lieu  of  the  dismal  paved  backyard  would  become 
necessary.  Upon  this  point  very  strong  observa- 
tions are  made  on  the  provision  of  playgrounds  by 
the  Scottish  School  Boards  for  the  elementary  and 
higher  schools  under  their  charge,  by  the  Royal 
Commission  on  Physical  Training  in  Scotland. 
They  observe  that  : — 

"  No  higher  school  could  subsist  for  a  year 
unless  it  provided  ample  playground  accommodation 
for  its  pupils  ;  .  .  .  yet  the  same  School  Boards 
appear  to  think  that  they  have  done  all  that  is 
required  for  the  elementary  schools  if,  along  with 
large  and  admirably  equipped  schoolrooms,  they 
provide  a  small  paved  yard  in  which  the  children 
can  get  an  occasional  breath  of  air,  but  where 
games  are   entirely  out  of  the  question.     Higher 


212     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

class  schools  frequently  have  the  use  of  fields  of 
some  acres  in  extent,  situated  at  some  distance  from 
the  school ;  not  in  a  single  instance  did  we  find  that 
such  fields  were  provided,  even  for  a  combination 
of  several  elementary  schools.  This  contrast  is 
very  striking.  Money  has  been  spent  lavishly  in 
stone  and  lime,  where  the  more  formal  school  work 
can  be  carried  on.  .  .  .  But  gymnasia  and  play- 
grounds, which  would  not  have  cost  nearly  so  much 
and  are  equally  necessary  for  the  welfare  of  the 
poorer  scholars,  have  been  much  neglected." 

In  England  the  public  elementary  schools  suffer 
under  the  same  inequality  and  injustice.  While  the 
children  of  the  rich  play  too  much,  the  children  of 
the  poor  do  not  play  at  all.  They  do  not  know  how 
to  play  ;  they  have  no  place  to  play  in  if  they  did. 
Instead  of  building  new  schoolrooms,  the  local 
authorities  should  establish  for  the  children  of  the 
poor  playgrounds  and  playing  fields,  and  turn  the 
children  out  into  them  ;  so  that  more  time  should 
be  spent  in  physical,  and  less  in  mental,  exercises. 
Such  a  plan  would  be  cheaper  and  far  more  healthy. 

Evening  Classes 

Physical,  like  mental,  training  ought  not  to  come 
to  an  abrupt  stop  when  the  boy  or  girl  leaves 
school,  but  should  be  carried  further  in  continuation 
classes.  Such  classes  are,  under  our  present  system 
of  education,  purely  voluntary  ;  but  it  is  easy  to 
provide  physical  exercises  agreeable  to  the  students 


PHYSICAL    TRAINING  213 

as  well  as  valuable  in  themselves.  They  would 
attract,  and  not  repel.  It  is  impossible  to  devise 
beforehand  a  time-table  that  would  suit  all  persons 
and  all  places.  Anything  prescribed  by  the  Board 
of  Education  should  be  very  elastic.  The  physique 
of  the  population  and  their  daily  employments 
would  have  to  be  taken  into  consideration.  Some 
of  the  best  attendants  at  evening  classes  come  for 
purely  technical  instruction  applicable  to  the  trades 
in  which  they  are  workers ;  to  make  physical 
exercises  compulsory  on  these  students  would  tend 
to  drive  them  away.  But  this  is  no  objection  to 
the  provision  by  local  authorities  of  opportunities 
for  physical  training  for  those  who  desire  it;  and 
in  the  case  of  evening  school  instruction  which  is 
complementary  to  that  given  in  the  elementary 
schools,  certain  physical  exercises  might  be  pre- 
scribed in  the  curriculum  from  which  those  only 
should  be  excused,  if  they  desired  it,  who  gave 
satisfactory  evidence  of  proficiency  and  adequate 
previous  training. 

Hooligans 

There  is  a  class  of  lads  and  young  men,  who 
spring  up  in  every  great  city,  to  whom  the  name 
of  "  Hooligans  "  has  been  lately  given.  They  are 
beyond  the  school  age  and  cannot  be  dealt  with  as 
truants  in  the  truant  schools.  They  have  emanci- 
pated themselves  from  all  home  influences  and 
restraints.     They  belong  to  no  skilled   trade,  but 


214      THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

have  learnt  to  maintain  a  shifty  existence  on  odd 
jobs  and  casual  employment.  They  loaf  about  at 
street  corners  in  the  day,  and  assemble  in  bands  at 
night  to  the  terror  of  peaceable  citizens.  They  are 
not  starving,  they  are  not  physically  incapable,  but 
they  are  shy  of  restraint  and  regular  work.  They 
prefer  the  railway  arch  to  the  continuation  school. 
These  boys  are  very  good  material  running  to 
waste.  The  University  Settlements  have  succeeded 
in  taming  and  civilising  some  of  them,  and  it  is 
said  that  when  a  boy  of  this  class  begins  to  learn 
to  box  his  reformation  has  commenced. 

The  Royal  Commission  on  Physical  Training  in 
Scotland  makes  an  admirable  suggestion  for  dealing 
with  boys  of  this  class.  They  refer  to  the  type 
of  school  known  as  a  ''Truant  School"  lately 
established,  and  to  the  fact  that  of  34,000  children 
who  had  up  to  1900  passed  through, such  schools 
more  than  half  had  done  so  once  and  no  more  ; 
while  only  about  one  in  six  had  had  to  be  admitted 
more  than  twice.  "It  would  be  well  if  some  local 
authority  had  power  to  establish  a  similar  school  for 
the  older  class  of  whom  we  have  been  speaking.  .  .  . 
The  short  detention  school  should  be  as  brisk  and 
lively  as  strenuous  in  the  activity  of  the  schoolroom 
and  the  workshop  and  of  the  drill-yard  or  gym- 
nasium as  the  best  organised  truant  school ;  and 
a  license,  conditional  on  regular  attendance  at  a 
continuation  class  should  be  easily  earned.  There 
seems  no  reason  why  such  an  institution  should 
not   be   as   effective   as   a   truant   school,   and   we 


PHYSICAL    TRAINING  215 

suggest    that    the    proposal    is    at    least   worth   a 
trial." 

If  there  were  such  a  thing  as  real  local  self-govern- 
ment in  Great  Britain,  every  local  authority  would 
have  power  to  establish  such  an  institution  without 
the  interference  of  Parliament  or  the  Central 
Government.  But  assuming  the  Royal  Commission 
to  be  right  in  its  estimate  of  the  impotence  of  local 
authority,  it  is  significant  that  more  than  six  years 
have  elapsed  and  no  attempt  to  confer  authority 
to  make  an  experiment  either  in  Scotland  or 
England  has  been  made. 


CHAPTER   XIII 


FACTORIES     AND     MINES 


Child-workers 


THE  obligation  of  public  authority  to  protect 
the  health  of  children  and  young  persons  in 
establishments  of  organised  industry  is  now  admitted 
by  every  civilised  nation  in  the  world.  Until 
twenty  or  thirty  years  ago  Great  Britain  enjoyed 
the  illustrious  position  of  guiding  all  countries  which 
had  betaken  themselves  to  factory  industry  in  estab- 
lishing laws  for  this  purpose  :  she  is  now  a  good 
way  behind  many  of  her  disciples,  who  owed  their 
first  lesson  to  her  example.  Protection  involves 
the  limitation  of  the  age  at  which  children  may 
begin  to  work,  and  the  prescription  of  suitable 
hours  of  labour,  and  healthy  conditions  of  employ- 
ment. It  is  both  against  the  capitalist  employer 
and  the  necessities  or  cupidity  of  parents  and 
guardians  that  such  protection  is  needed.  The 
former  imagines  himself  to  have  an  interest  in 
employing  child  labour  wherever  it  is  procurable 
and  effective  :  it  is  itself  apparently  cheap  and  it 


216 


FACTORIES    AND    MINES  217 

helps  to  keep  down  the  wages  of  adults.  In  this, 
as  in  other  cases,  the  responsibility  of  the  parent 
was,  at  the  beginning  of  factory  industry,  loudly  and 
persistently  invoked  as  the  proper  and  sufficient 
protection  of  the  child.  But  the  horrors  which 
free  trade  in  the  lives  and  limbs  of  children  brought 
about  in  factories  and  mines  were  exposed  more 
than  a  hundred  years  ago,  until  at  last  the  con- 
science of  the  nation  was  aroused,  and  for  more  than 
a  century  a  series  of  laws  and  amending  laws 
relating  to  the  employment  of  children  and  young 
persons  in  factories,  workshops,  and  mines  have 
continuously  and  successively  been  enacted. 

Factory  Legislation 

These  proposed  laws  were  from  time  to  time 
vehemently  opposed  by  good  and  well-meaning 
persons,  exactly  upon  the  same  grounds  and  with 
the  same  confidence  in  their  own  rectitude  that  care 
of  the  physical  condition  of  children  in  the  public 
elementary  schools  is  now  being  objected  to.  The 
time-honoured  appeal  was  made  to  all  the  disastrous 
social  consequences  that  must  ensue  from  weaken- 
ing parental  authority  and  parental  responsibility. 
Parental  authority  and  the  love  of  parents  for  their 
children  did,  it  must  be  admitted,  prove  at  first  an 
effective  restraint  upon  the  cupidity  of  employers. 
Parents  would  not  in  the  early  days  of  steam 
industry  allow  their  children  to  be  employed  in 
factories:  the  names  of  " factory  boy"  and  "factory 


218      THE    CHILDKEN    OF    THE    NATION 

girl  "  were  terms  of  opprobrium  and  disgrace.  But 
circumstances  were  too  strong  for  parental  love. 
Their  own  wages  were,  by  the  employment  of 
children  from  outside,  reduced  to  starvation  point, 
and  their  own  children's  labour  became  essential  to 
the  support  of  the  family.  During  the  period  when 
parents  refused  to  send  their  children  to  the  mills 
the  "  Guardians  of  the  Poor  "  had  no  such  scruples  : 
they  sold  parish  children  from  5  years  old  and  up- 
wards to  the  manufacturers ;  these  hapless  children 
were  conveyed  to  the  manufacturing  districts  on 
canal  boats  in  a  manner  which  recalls  the  horrors 
of  the  slave-trade ;  they  worked  sixteen  hours  at  a 
stretch  ;  they  were  driven  by  the  whip  ;  they  fed 
with  the  pigs  ;  and  the  mortality  was  awful.  |  Mr. 
Spargo,  of  New  York,  in  his  book,  "  The  Bitter  Cry 
of  the  Children,"  says  truly :  "  There  is  no  more 
terrible  page  in  history  than  that  which  records 
the  enslavement  of  mere  babies  by  the  industrial 
revolution  of  the  eighteenth  century  in  England. 
Not  even  the  crucifixion  of  twenty  thousand  slaves 
along  the  highways  by  Scipio  excels  it  in  horror." 
By  very  slow  degrees,  by  incessant  inquiries  and 
committees,  by  the  labours  of  generations  of  kind- 
hearted  men,  and  by  some  enlightenment  of  the 
workers  themselves  as  to  their  own  interest  and 
that  of  their  children,  this  state  of  things  has  been 
gradually  altered,  until  at  the  present  time  horrors 
such  as  those  generally  prevalent  in  Great  Britain 
in  the  ranks  of  child  industry  a  hundred  years  ago 
are  relegated  to  the  small,  obscure  workshops  which 


FACTORIES    AND    MINES  219 

manage  to  escape  the  vigilance  of  the  inspector. 
The  condition  of  child-workers  in  the  larger 
factories  and  shops  is  anxiously  cared  for  by  public 
authority  ;  there  may  be  evils  still  prevalent,  but 
they  are  not  perpetrated  with  the  sanction  of  the 
law  and  under  the  shelter  of  the  local  government. 
Children  are,  however,  still  grievously  oppressed  in 
many  highly  civilised  countries.  The  energies  of 
Miss  Jane  Adams  and  the  Women's  University 
Settlement  in  Hull  House,  Chicago,  were  more 
than  ten  years  ago  directed  to  obtaining  some 
relief  for  the  miseries  to  which  child-workers  are  in 
that  city  subjected,  and  Mr.  Spargo's  book,  above 
quoted,  contains  a  terrible  account  of  the  condition 
in  which  large  classes  of  children  are  at  the  present 
time  compelled  to  labour  in  one  of  the  greatest  and 
freest  countries  in  the  world. 


Berlin  Conference 

The  Labour  Conference  at  Berlin,  called  by  the 
Emperor  of  Germany  in  1890,  was  mainly  occupied 
with  the  question  of  child  labour.  The  right  of 
children  to  State  protection  was  not  contested  by 
the  plenipotentiaries  of  any  country  represented  at 
the  Conference.  The  universal  sentiment  of  modern 
nations  was  eloquently  expressed  by  M.  Jules 
Simon  and  agreed  to  by  all  the  nations  represented  : 
11  Prot£ger  l'enfant,  c'est  veiller  au  sort  des  gene- 
rations a  venir,  et  s'acquitter  dune  dette  humanitaire 
vis-a-vis  de  ceux  qui  ne  peuvent  pas  toujours  se 


220      THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

defendre  eux-memes,  ou  auxquels  les  protecteurs 
naturels  font  defaut."  The  Conference,  after  long 
and  mature  deliberation,  arrived  unanimously  at  the 
conclusion  that  it  was  desirable — 

i.  That  children  of  both  sexes  under  a  certain 
age  should  be  excluded  from  labour  in  industrial 
establishments. 

2.  That  this  limit  of  age  should  be  fixed  at 
12  years,  except  in  southern  countries  (Italy  and 
Spain)  where  the  limit  should  be  10  years. 

3.  That  these  limits  of  age  should  be  the  same 
for  all  industrial  establishments,  and  that  no  distinc- 
tion should  be  admitted  in  this  respect. 

4.  That  the  children  should  have  previously 
satisfied  the  requirements  of  elementary  instruction. 

5.  That  children  under  14  years  of  age  should 
not  be  employed  at  night  nor  on  Sunday. 

6.  That  their  actual  labour  should  not  exceed  six 
hours  per  diem,  and  should  be  broken  by  a  rest  of 
half  an  hour  at  least. 

7.  That  children  should  be  excluded  from  pro- 
cesses that  were  unhealthy  or  dangerous,  or  should 
only  be  admitted  to  take  part  in  them  under 
conditions  that  would  protect  them  against  injury. 

None  of  the  plenipotentiaries  were  more  loud  in 
their  approval  of  these  conclusions  than  those  of 
Great  Britain ;  they  even  demurred  to  the  con- 
cession of  10  years  as  the  limit  of  age  in  southern 
countries  ;  they  were  in  this,  as  in  all  their  conduct 
at  the  Conference,  acting  in  obedience  to  telegraphic 
instructions  from  the  British  Foreign  Office. 


FACTORIES    AND    MINES  221 

British  Faith 

The  sincerity  of  the  British  Government  was 
soon  put  to  the  test.  The  limit  of  age  at  which 
children  could  be  employed  in  factories  and  work- 
shops in  Great  Britain  was  at  that  time  10.  In 
the  year  following  the  Berlin  Conference  an 
amending  Factory  Bill  was  laid  before  Parliament 
by  the  British  Government.  Notwithstanding  the 
professions  made  by  the  British  plenipotentiaries  in 
the  face  of  all  Europe  at  Berlin,  the  Government 
Factory  Bill  contained  no  provision  for  raising  the 
limit  of  age.  In  the  course  of  the  passage  of  the 
Bill  through  the  House  of  Commons  a  clause  was 
proposed  by  a  member  of  the  Opposition  raising 
the  limit  not  to  12,  but  to  1 1  only — half-way  in 
the  direction  of  the  Berlin  pledge.  But  the  influence 
of  the  capitalists  on  the  Government  had  become 
too  strong  to  be  resisted.  Since  the  death  of  Mr. 
Disraeli,  the  leaders  of  the  Tory  party  have  been 
always  too  weak  *to  protect  the  interests  of  the 
workers  against  any  fixed  determination  of  the 
capitalists.  It  was  said  that  the  latter  class  were 
before  the  Berlin  Conference  of  opinion  that  the 
legislation  of  Great  Britain  on  the  subject  of  factory 
employment  was  more  restrictive  than  that  of 
foreign  countries  in  general  and  especially  than  that 
of  Germany,  and  that  this  handicapped  the  British 
manufacturer  in  the  industrial  competition  of  the 
world.  It  was  expected  that  one  result  of  the 
Conference  might  be  to  prevail  on  other  countries 


222      THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

to  make  their  laws  as  stringent  as  ours :  it  has 
indeed  had  the  result  of  making  the  general  laws  of 
the  civilised  world  more  stringent  than  our  own. 
But  the  British  capitalists  had  no  intention  of 
restricting  their  own  supply  of  child  labour  ;  and 
the  amendment  proposed  by  the  Opposition  was 
therefore  vehemently  resisted.  On  this,  as  on  most 
occasions  when  the  interests  of  children  and  capital- 
ists come  into  conflict,  the  Government  of  the  day 
sided  with  the  latter,  and  the  benevolent  amend- 
ment, notwithstanding  an  eloquent  appeal  by  Mr. 
Burt,  who  was  one  of  the  British  representatives 
at  Berlin,  was  opposed  with  all  the  influence 
and  authority  of  a  powerful  Government.  The 
Government  were,  however,  defeated  on  a  division 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  the  age  was  raised 
to  ii.  Many  years  afterwards,  when  the  same 
party  again  held  the  reins  of  power,  a  Bill  was 
brought  in  by  a  Liberal  member  raising  the  age 
to  the  Berlin  standard  of  12.  On  this  occasion 
the  Government,  still  afraid  of  their  capitalist  sup- 
porters, absented  themselves  altogether  from  the 
House  of  Commons  ;  they  were  not  present  at  any 
of  the  discussions  or  divisions,  and  the  British 
limit  was  finally  raised  to  12  without  their  help 
or  concurrence. 


Mines 

The    expediency   of    State    interference   in   the 
working  of  mines  rests  upon  even  stronger  grounds 


FACTORIES    AND    MINES  223 

than  in  factories.  The  condition  of  a  mine  affects 
not  only  the  health  of  the  children  and  young 
people  employed  underground,  but  the  lives  of 
everybody  in  the  mine.  This  subject  also  was 
much  discussed  at  the  Berlin  Conference,  which 
arrived  at  the  unanimous  conclusion  that  it  was 
desirable — 

i.  (a)  That  the  limit  of  age  at  which  children 
could  be  admitted  to  work  underground  should  ^>e 
gradually  raised,  as  experience  proved  the  possi- 
bility, to  14  years.  For  southern  countries  the 
limit  should  be  that  of  12  years. 

(&)  That  underground  labour  should  be  prohibited 
to  persons  of  the  female  sex. 

2.  That  in  cases  where  the  science  of  mining  was 
insufficient  to  remove  all  danger  to  health  from  the 
conditions,  natural  or  artificial,  of  the  working  of 
certain  mines  or  portions  of  mines,  the  hours  of 
labour  should  be  restricted. 

3.  (a)  That  the  security  of  the  worker  and  the 
healthiness  of  the  works  should  be  assured  by  all 
the  means  at  the  disposal  of  science,  and  placed 
under  the  surveillance  of  the  State. 

(b)  That  the  managing  engineers  should  be 
exclusively  persons  of  experience  and  technical 
competence  duly  established. 

(c)  That  the  relations  between  the  workers  and 
managing  engineers  should  be  as  direct  as  possible, 
so  that  they  might  have  a  character  of  mutual 
confidence  and  respect. 

(d)  Relates    to   the   encouragement    of    friendly 


224     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

societies  and  insurance  against  sickness  and 
accident,  and, 

(e)  To  the  means  of  preventing  strikes  and 
lock-outs. 

In  Great  Britain,  at  the  time  of  the  Berlin  Con- 
ference, underground  labour  had  long  been  for- 
bidden to  girls  ;  though  girls  still  work  at  the  pit 
mouth,  this  labour  is  healthy  though  rough,  and 
there  is  no  reason  for  State  interference  on  sani- 
tary grounds.  The  age  at  which  boys  might  go 
underground  was  12  :  it  has  since  been  raised 
to  13.  There  was  not,  and  is  not  now,  any 
restriction  as  to  their  hours  of  labour.  In  Durham 
and  Northumberland  the  Miners'  Unions  have  long 
obtained  short  hours  for  the  men,  who  work  in 
three  shifts,  and  whose  hours  of  labour  amount  to 
six  or  seven  hours  per  diem.  But  the  boys,  who 
work  in  two  shifts,  have  as  much  as  10J  hours  of 
labour  per  diem  :  and  the  Annual  Bill  which  limits 
the  labour  in  mines  to  eight  hours  is  regularly 
opposed  by  the  representatives  of  the  Durham  and 
Northumberland  miners  upon  the  ground  that  it 
would  upset  this  arrangement.  The  ventilation  of 
mines  is  the  object  of  very  precise  legislation  and 
of  constant  supervision  by  the  Government.  The 
competence  of  the  managers  and  engineers,  who 
have  the  direction  of  the  works,  is  also  secured  by 
specific  regulations  and  is  not  left  to  the  individual 
interest  of  the  mine-owner.  In  all  mines  there  are 
regulations  having  the  force  of  law  to  protect  the 
safety,  the  health,  and  the  comfort,  not  only  of  the 


FACTORIES    AND    MINES  225 

children  and  young  persons  but  of  the  adult  men 
employed. 


Hours  of  Labour  in  Mines 

The  chief  controversy  that  now  remains  is 
whether  the  hours  of  underground  labour  should  be 
restricted  by  law.  The  second  resolution  of  the 
Berlin  Conference  on  mines,  quoted  above,  which 
recommends  such  a  restriction  in  certain  cases  does 
not  refer  to  ordinary  coal-mines,  but  to  such  mines 
as  those  in  Westphalia,  where  labour  is  restricted 
by  law  to  six  hours  per  diem,  when  the  temperature 
goes  above  290  (Reaumur),  or  as  those  of  Almaden, 
in  Spain,  where  mercurial  vapours  render  peculiar 
precautions  necessary,  and  where  labour  is  restricted 
by  law  to  six  hours,  and  even  this  limit  cannot 
always  be  attained.  In  the  mines  of  argentiferous 
lead  in  the  Sierra  Almagrdra,  the  temperature  in 
workings  at  the  sea-level  often  exceeds  450  (Centi- 
grade) and  in  these  cases  hours  of  labour  are 
restricted  by  law.  But  it  is  contended  in  our 
country  that  on  physical  grounds  of  health  and 
conservation  of  vigour,  underground  labour  ought 
to  be  restricted  in  every  mine  whether  specially 
unhealthy  or  not ;  that  eight  hours  per  diem  is  as 
much  as  any  boy  or  man  can  spend  in  the  artificial 
conditions  of  a  miner's  life,  without  detriment  to  his 
well-being  ;  and  that  on  this  ground  the  State  is 
justified  in  placing  restriction  upon  labour  of  this 
kind.     That  some  restriction  should  be  placed  upon 


226     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

the  underground  labour  of  boys  of  13,  few  will 
be  disposed  to  deny.  It  is  sixteen  years  since 
the  Berlin  Conference,  and  the  time  has  surely 
arrived  when  some  serious  effort  should  be  made  to 
carry  out  the  reforms  which  the  British  Government 
then  so  ardently  desired. 


CHAPTER  XIV 


STATE   CHILDREN 


Derelict  Children 


THERE  is  a  considerable  number  of  children 
for  whose  bringing  up  the  State  is  directly 
and  solely  responsible,  either  permanently,  as  in 
the  case  of  orphan  and "  deserted  children ;  or 
temporarily,  as  in  the  case  of  those  whose  parents 
are  paupers  in  the  workhouse  or  criminals  in  prison. 
The  name  "  pauper  children,"  by  which  they  are 
often  called,  is  a  misnomer.  A  child  cannot  be  a 
"  pauper,"  for  it  is  born  with  a  right  to  be 
maintained  by  others  till  old  enough  to  maintain 
itself;  and  the  child  of  the  rich  is  as  dependent 
upon  others  as  the  child  of  the  poor ;  parents  may 
be  paupers,  but  children  always  possess  a  legal 
right  to  maintenance ;  to  call  a  child  by  the  oppro- 
brious name  of  "pauper"  because  its  parents  are 
such,  is  as  unjust  as  it  would  be  to  call  it  criminal 
because  its  parents  are  in  prison.  It  is  interesting 
to  inquire  how  the  State  itself  deals  with  those 
children  who  are  thus  in  a  special  sense  its  own, 


227 


228      THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

how  it  fulfils  its  own  parental  responsibilities,  and 
how  far  it  avoids  those  errors  and  shortcomings 
which  are  justly  reprobated  in  the  poor.  It  would 
be  unfair  to  the  present  order  of  society  to  recur 
to  the  days  not  more  than  one  hundred  years  ago, 
when  the  public  authorities  sold  the  children,  for 
whose  bringing  up  they  were  responsible,  to  slavery 
in  the  Lancashire  cotton  mills,  and  transported 
them  thither  in  canal  boats,  of  which  the  horrors 
resembled  those  of  the  slave-ships  in  the  middle 
passage  ;  or  to  the  criminal  neglect  and  starvation 
to  which  poor  children  were  exposed  in  the  days 
when  Charles  Dickens  was  inspired  to  write 
"  Oliver  Twist/'  and  awaken  the  humanity  and 
conscience  of  the  British  people  :  it  is  enough  to 
consider  the  present,  when  the  highest  public  virtue 
is  proffered,  when  the  oppression  of  the  poor  is 
conducted  upon  philanthropic  and  scientific  prin- 
ciples, and  when  children  are  deprived  of  their 
legal  rights  only  from  defective  administration. 

Evading  Responsibility 

The  State  is  just  as  ready  as  the  most  pauperised 
parents,  to  shift  its  liabilities  if  it  can  on  others. 
Thousands  of  destitute  children,  for  whose  main- 
tenance and  education  the  State  is  liable,  but  for 
whom  the  State  neglects  to  provide,  are  being 
brought  up  by  charitable  and  semi-charitable 
societies.  In  some  few  cases  the  Guardians  are 
paying,  as  they  are  legally  liable  to  do,  for  the  cost 
of  maintaining   such  children,  but  these  cases  are 


STATE    CHILDREN  229 

exceptional  ;  as  a  general  rule,  their  obligations 
are  evaded.  Deserted  babes,  as  young  as  six  years 
old,  fit  only  for  a  mother's  care,  are  brought  as 
criminals  to  the  police  courts,  charged  with  the 
crime  of  being  "  found  destitute."  They  can  then 
be  committed  till  16  to  an  industrial  school,  and 
part  of  the  cost  of  their  maintenance  can  by  this 
expedient  be  shifted  from  the  rates  to  the  Con- 
solidated Fund. 

Outdoor  Relief 

One  of  the  commonest  expedients  by  which 
rural  Guardians,  in  particular,  evade  their  respon- 
sibilities for  bringing  up  fatherless  children,  is  by 
imposing  the  cost  of  maintaining  them  upon  their 
widowed  mothers  with  very  inadequate  public  help. 
A  great  part  of  the  population  of  country  villages 
is  composed  of  widows  with  large  families  of  young 
children.  To  bring  these  children  up  the  mother 
must  work  herself  almost  to  death ;  it  is  amongst 
such  women  that  you  find  the  noblest  examples 
of  courage,  industry,  self-devotion,  and  patient 
endurance  of  poverty.  They  have  a  pittance  of 
outdoor  relief ;  they  get  something  from  the 
religious  charities  of  their  parish  ;  some  are 
befriended  by  richer  neighbours  ;  and  these 
sources  of  income  they  supplement  by  unremitting 
and  often  ill-paid  toil.  They  thus  drag  up  a  family 
of  "  valuable  national  assets  "  in  the  best  way  they 
can.  If  Guardians  treated  a  widow  as  responsible 
for  bringing  up  one  or  two  of  her  children,  and  the 


230     THE    CHILDKEN    OF    THE    NATION 

rest  as  State  children,  for  whom  the  public  was 
liable  ;  if  they  paid  her  a  weekly  sum  for  main- 
taining and  taking  care  of  these  children,  subject, 
of  course,  to  all  necessary  supervision  ;  the  present 
oppression  of  the  fatherless  and  widows  would 
cease,  and  the  children  would  be  better  fed  and 
better  clothed,  would  be  fit  to  profit  by  public 
education,  and  grow  up  into  better  men  and 
women. 


State  Children  in   Workhouses 

More  than  ten  years  ago,  a  committee  was 
appointed  by  the  Local  Government  Board  to 
inquire  into  the  existing  systems  of  maintaining 
and  educating  children  who  were  under  the  charge 
of  Boards  of  Guardians.  They  reported  in  1896. 
One  of  their  recommendations  was  that  no  child 
above  3  years  of  age  should  be  allowed  to  enter 
a  workhouse,  but  that  small  homes  outside  the 
workhouse,  containing  not  more  than  twenty 
children,  should  be  provided  for  their  temporary 
reception  pending  arrangements  for  their  future 
allocation.  The  evils  of  keeping  children  in  work- 
houses were  universally  admitted  and  deprecated 
by  every  Poor  Law  official.  In  most  workhouses 
there  was  an  entire  absence  of  educational  pro- 
vision ;  where  such  had  been  made  it  was  reported 
to  be  very  defective  ;  in  some  they  were  being 
instructed  by  a  pauper  inmate,  taken  off  the  rates 
to  serve  as  schoolmaster  ;    at  the   best  they  were 


STATE    CHILDREN  231 

attending  a  neighbouring  public  elementary  school, 
but  this  arrangement  broke  down  whenever  there 
was  an  epidemic  of  infectious  disease  either  in  the 
district  or  in  the  workhouse,  and  they  then  had  to  be 
kept  at  the  workhouse  without  instruction.  Besides 
being  deprived  of  education,  the  children  were  not, 
in  general,  kept  under  proper  classification  and 
supervision  :  they  associated  with  adult  paupers 
of  a  class  sometimes  verging  on  the  criminal, 
whose  influence  on  them  was  admitted  to  be  very 
undesirable  ;  they  lived,  fed,  and  slept  without  the 
needed  separation  from  the  other  inmates  ;  and 
it  was  unreasonable  to  expect  that  they  would  ever 
shake  off  the  pernicious  influence  of  early  days 
spent  within  the  walls  of  the  workhouse.  Many 
children  remained  in  this  position  for  months  and 
even  years.  The  recommendation  of  the  com- 
mittee was  universally  accepted.  The  only  reason 
given  for  retaining  children  in  workhouses  was  the 
absence  of  proper  accommodation  for  them  elsewhere. 
Promises  were  made  that  the  necessary  provision 
should  be  at  once  made,  and  the  mischievous 
practice  of  keeping  children  in  workhouses  put 
an  end  to.  In  November,  1894,  there  were  in 
the  Metropolis  2,994  children  in  workhouses  and 
workhouse  infirmaries;  in  January,  1906,  the  last 
date  from  which  a  return  is  available,  there  were 
3,039.  So  much  for  our  promises  of  reform !  The 
number  of  children  in  workhouses  and  workhouse 
infirmaries  in  England  and  Wales  was  in  January, 
1906,    21,769,  and   shows  no   sign   of  diminution. 


232     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

In  Midsummer,  1906,  the  medical  officer  of  the 
West  Ham  Board  of  Guardians  reported  that — 

4 'The  condition  of  the  infants'  school  block  is 
disgraceful  in  the  extreme.  There  is  accommoda- 
tion for  44,  there  are  118  in  it.  The  day-room 
is  26  feet  by  18  feet,  and  its  condition  when 
the  children  are  in  can  be  better  imagined  than 
described.  Disease  has  been  rife  during  the  past 
half-year.  Thirty  children  now  have  measles. 
Disease  always  follows  upon  gross  overcrowding, 
and  I  cannot  be  responsible  for  what  may  happen 
next." 

This  has  occurred  in  spite  of  repeated  protests 
of  the  State  Children's  Association,  and  remon- 
strances from  the  inspectors  of  the  Local  Govern- 
ment Board. 

District  Schools 

The  first  plan  of  providing  for  destitute  children 
out  of  the  workhouses  was  the  establishment 
of  large  barrack  schools  situated  usually  in  the 
midst  of  country  air  and  healthy  surroundings, 
where  they  were  lodged,  boarded,  and  instructed, 
entirely  separated  from  adult  paupers.  Buildings 
and  grounds  for  recreation  were  provided  with 
great  liberality.  The  mistake  made  was  that  these 
institutions  were  much  too  large ;  in  some  more 
than  a  thousand  children  were  massed  together. 
In  1888  a  Select  Committee  of  the  House  of 
Lords  called  attention  to  the  disadvantages  of 
the  system,    ''which  are,"  they  said    "inseparable 


STATE    CHILDREN  233 

from  any  system  under  which  a  number  of  children 
are   brought   up   together  without  home  influence 
or   any    contact    with    the    outer    world,    but    we 
cannot    doubt    that    they    are     much     aggravated 
by   the   overgrown  size "    (of  the  schools).     "  The 
great  size  of  the  schools,"  says  Mr.  Knollys,  Chief 
Inspector   of  the    Local    Government   Board,    "  is 
due  to  the  prevailing  opinion  on  the  part  of  the 
managers,    that   a   large   school    is    cheaper    than 
a  small  one."     The  aggregation  of  large  numbers 
of  children  in  one  institution  has  been  universally 
condemned   by   medical   authority.     It  has  tended 
to  the  dissemination  of  infectious  disease,  especially 
of    ophthalmia,    ringworm,    and    skin    complaints 
generally.      "  The   bigger    the   school,"   says    Dr. 
Sykes,  Medical  Officer  of  Health  of  St.   Pancras, 
"  the  bigger   the   danger   of  a   serious   outbreak." 
Experience    has    fully  proved   the   correctness   of 
medical   opinion.     As   long  ago   as    1862    experts 
were   employed    to    inquire    into    the    prevalence 
of  ophthalmia    in    district   schools.       In   spite   of 
every    effort    to    prevent    the    disease,    short    ot 
breaking  up  the   large   schools,  and  providing  for 
the    children    in    smaller    ones,    there    had    been 
continual   outbreaks  of  ophthalmia  in  the  district 
schools,  causing  not  only  great  pain   and  distress 
to  the  children  but  sometimes  blindness  and  other 
defects    of  vision,    which    unfitted    them    to   be   a 
support   to   society   in   after   life.     Statistics   have 
proved  that  the  longer  a  child  is  kept  in  the  atmo- 
sphere of  the  dormitories  and  day-rooms  of  crowded 


234     THE    CHILDREN    OF   THE    NATION 

schools  the  more  liable  it  becomes  to  this  disease. 
Children  when  housed  together  in  large  numbers 
suffer  also  from  mental  dulness  ;  they  are  not  so 
apt  and  intelligent  as  other  children.  Although 
they  have  had  the  advantage  of  better  sanitary 
conditions  and  liberal  dietary,  they  have  become 
dull  and  wooden  probable  from  the  machine-like 
monotony  of  their  life,  and  are  very  slow  in 
everything  they  do.  The  fact  of  having  to 
make  provision  for  large  numbers  forbids  indi- 
vidual treatment,  and  any  originality  with  which  a 
child  enters  an  institution  is  soon  crushed  down 
and  rolled  out  into  a  featureless  uniformity.  As 
regards  formation  of  character,  Dr.  Barnardo,  who 
had  a  larger  experience  than  any  other  man  of 
modern  days,  in  the  management  of  destitute 
and  deserted  children,  thought  the  schools  of 
the  workhouse  type,  unless  they  took  the  form 
of  industrial  schools,  not  desirable  for  boys,  and 
for  girls  "  an  unmixed  evil "  :  the  worst  cases 
that  had  been  under  his  care  came  from  the  Poor 
Law  institutions.  "  The  mental  condition  of 
the  girls,"  he  says,  "  has  been  a  source  of  great 
amazement  to  me,  their  dulness  and  incapacity, 
and  especially  the  animalism  of  their  tempers. 
I  have  had  some  of  these  cases  which  have  been 
the  most  perplexing  I  have  ever  had  in  all  my 
experience,  and  I  have  been  compelled  to  reject 
most  of  these  girls  as  unfitted  for  emigration.  .  .  . 
I  am  bound  to  say  that  evil  habits  are  much 
more  prevalent  than  I  think   the  public  have  any 


STATE    CHILDREN  235 

conception  of  in  all  Poor  Law  establishments  of 
a  barrack  class  in  which  girls  are  aggregated." 
Dr.  Barnardo  himself  began  with  a  barrack  school  : 
he  gave  it  up  because  of  the  revelations  that  came 
home  to  him  as  to  the  certain  result ;  M  when 
a  number  of  females  are  massed  together,  girls 
or  women,  they  seem  to  react  on  each  other  in 
a  degrading  way ;  the  standard  gets  lower.  I 
believe,"  he  says,  "the  daily  monotony  of  even 
the  best  barrack  institution  affords  no  channel 
for  the  nervous  energy  of  the  inmates  to  run  safely 
in.  The  normal  excitements  of  ordinary  life, 
excitements  which  come  to  all  children  in  the 
natural  family,  are  the  most  healthy  stimuli  in 
the  formation  of  character.  The  dull  monotony 
of  institution  life,  and  its  weary  routine  which 
reduces  everything  to  the  dead  level  of  a  colourless 
experience,  has  much  to  answer  for  in  the  evil 
habits  contracted  by  these  girls."  The  industrial 
training  which  it  is  possible  to  give  in  district 
schools  compares  unfavourably  with  that  given 
by  Dr.  Barnardo,  where  all  boys,  even  the  cripples, 
are  apprenticed  to  trades  at  which  they  can  earn 
a  living ;  they  are  not  turned  out  into  the  world 
to  shift  for  themselves,  but  are  sent  to  situations 
and  a  kindly  supervision  is  maintained  over  them 
as  long  as  it  is  required.  In  very  few  of  the 
district  schools  has  there  been  any  efficient 
technical  training.  The  boys  and  girls  must  be 
generally  got  rid  of  at  14,  which  is  too  early 
an    age     to    have     them     fitted      for      anything 


236     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

but  unskilled  employment.  The  boys  learn  to 
play  musical  instruments,  and  the  most  successful 
become  bandsmen ;  some  are  employed  in  fields 
or  gardens,  but  not  in  such  a  way  as  to  qualify 
them  to  become  small  farmers  or  gardeners ;  the 
girls  perform  much  of  the  domestic  and  laundry 
service  of  the  institution,  but  the  experience  of 
the  machinery  and  appliances  requisite  in  a 
great  establishment  does  not  fit  them  either  for 
domestic  service  or  to  manage  houses  of  their 
own.  The  youths  and  maidens  turned  out  from 
the  Poor  Law  schools  are  far  less  fitted  for 
useful  employment  in  the  world  than  those  who 
proceed  from  Dr.  Barnardo's  homes.  The  West 
Norwood  Education  Committee  in  1906  reported 
on  the  Poor  Law  children  of  Lambeth,  who 
attend  public  elementary  schools  in  Norwood 
from  the  Norwood  barrack  school  ;  their  report 
shows  that  the  blighting  influence  of  barrack 
school  life  is  still  discernable  in  such  children, 
even  when  it  is  mitigated  by  their  communication 
in  the  council  schools,  with  the  children  of  the 
normal  population. 

Village  Communities 

To  mitigate  the  evils  of  district  schools,  many 
Boards  of  Guardians  have  established  little  colonies 
of  separate  homes  to  take  the  place  of  one  large 
residential  establishment.  This  system  is  an 
improvement    on     the     district     school,    just     as 


STATE    CHILDREN  237 

that  is  an  improvement  on  the  workhouse.  At 
Banstead,  in  Surrey,  was  placed  the  first  village 
community  which  formed  the  model  for  most  of 
those  that  have  been  since  established  in  London. 
In  it  the  cottages  are  detached,  some  for  boys, 
some  for  girls  ;  each  is  occupied  by  about  three 
dozen  of  the  former,  or  two  dozen  of  the  latter. 
Each  cottage  has  its  dining-room,  its  kitchen,  its 
two  or  three  bedrooms,  and  its  garden  and  play- 
ground ;  in  the  girls'  cottages  is  also  a  small 
wash-house.  The  boys'  cottages  are  placed  under 
the  care  of  a  married  couple  ;  the  girls  under  that 
of  a  single  woman  or  widow.  Boys  under  7 
are  put  into  girls'  cottages.  The  domestic  life 
of  the  children  is  thus  restricted  to  smaller 
numbers ;  only  the  schooling  and  industrial 
training  is  common  to  all  ;  the  cottage  father 
and  mother  can  take  some  interest  and  accord 
some  love  and  affection  to  individual  children ; 
and  the  domestic  surroundings  are  more  like 
those  of  a  natural  home.  There  is  a  much  higher 
standard  of  health  maintained  in  these  cottages 
than  is  to  be  found  in  schools  of  the  institution 
type  ;  the  children  are  brighter  and  their  physical 
development  greater  ;  they  are  much  more  free 
from  ophthalmia,  ringworm,  and  skin  diseases. 

The  village  community  does,  however,  retain 
a  great  many  of  the  evils  of  district  schools. 
The  population  of  the  village  is  composed  entirely 
of  one  class,  Poor  Law  officials,  and  Poor  Law 
children  ;  there  is  no  admixture  of  the  outer  world 


238     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

The  separation  of  boys  and  girls,  which  obtains 
in  most  of  these  communities,  is  artificial  and 
mischievous.  The  numbers,  which  for  economic 
reasons  are  assigned  to  each  cottage,  are  far  too 
great ;  there  are  large  kitchen  ranges  and  boilers, 
and  all  the  mechanical  contrivances  necessary  for 
cooking  for  three  dozen  inmates,  and  there  is 
nothing  like  real  family  life.  In  some  of  the 
more  modern  village  communities,  as,  for  example, 
at  Sidcup,  where  the  children  from  the  Greenwich 
Union  are  placed,  blocks  of  buildings  to  accom- 
modate as  many  as  sixty  boys,  have  been  erected. 
This  introduces  an  embryo  barrack  school  into 
the  community,  and  is  getting  half-way  back 
again  to  institution  life.  The  attempt  to  make 
real  village  children  of  the  inmates  of  village 
communities  is  vain.  They  usually  do  not  attend 
the  village  schools,  they  do  not  play  with  the  village 
children,  or  roam  with  them  in  fields  and  lanes, 
they  are  confined  within  an  iron  fence ;  they  do 
not  attend  the  village  church  or  chapel ;  they  do 
not  get  absorbed  into  the  village  life  ;  when  they 
leave  school  they  often  go  back  to  the  workhouse 
and  the  town. 

Scattered  Homes 

More  than  ten  years  ago  a  system  of  dealing 
with  Poor  Law  children,  in  the  teeth  of  the  most 
strenuous  opposition  on  the  t  part  of  the  Local 
Government  Board,  was  invented  in  Sheffield,  which 
has   since   been   imitated   by   a   great    number   of 


STATE    CHILDREN  239 

public    authorities.      All   children    under   3    years 
of  age  are  turned  away  at  the  door  of  the  work- 
house,   which   they  never   enter,  and   go   at   once 
into    the    children's     receiving-house    from    which 
they  are  drafted,  as  soon  as  their  physical  condition 
has   been   ascertained,    into   a   probationary   home 
in   the    immediate   vicinity.     From   this   they   are 
removed  as  soon  as  possible  to  isolated  or  scattered 
homes,    each    of    which    contains     about     sixteen 
children.     These  homes  are  not  grouped  together, 
but  are,   as   far   as  possible,  scattered  in  different 
healthy  suburbs  of   Sheffield  :    they  are   ordinary 
dwelling-houses,      undistinguishable     from      other 
dwellings   of  respectable   artizans.      The   children 
in  each  home  are  of  both  sexes  and  all  ages  from 
3  to  8  for   boys    and    3    to     13    for    girls ;    they 
are   presided  over   by  a  foster-mother  who  cooks, 
cleans,    mends,    washes,  and  irons  for   the    home, 
with    the    help    of    the     elder     children     and     a 
charwoman  one    day  in    the    week ;    the   cooking 
is  done  in   ordinary   utensils  and  by   an   ordinary 
fire.     Each  child  has  a  pigeon-hole  for  its  belong- 
ings and  a  box  for  its  clothes.     "  It  is  contrived," 
says  Mr.  Ashberry,  one   of  the  inventors   of  the 
scheme,   "to  have   'our  baby'  in  each  home,  the 
pet  of  the  household.     When  this  is  taken   away 
for    adopting,    boarding-out,    or    discharged    with 
its  parents,  the  home  is  plunged  in  grief.     At  one 
home  an  elder  girl  who  had  been  much  attached 
to  one  taken  away  said  that  the   'house  seemed 
empty/ "     The  children  in   the  home  are   dressed 


240      THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

like  other  children,  and  are  sent  unattended  to  the 
ordinary  public  elementary  schools  in  their 
neighbourhood;  they  are  well  spoken  of  by  the 
teachers  as  quite  equal  to  the  average  in  intelli- 
gence, power  of  learning,  and  conduct;  they 
play  with  their  school-fellows  ;  on  Sundays,  they 
attend  the  neighbouring  churches,  chapels,  and 
Sunday  schools ;  they  are  enrolled  in  Bands  of  Hope, 
and  share  in  all  the  treats  and  entertainments  ; 
nobody  treats  them  as  a  separate  class.  The 
children  are  kept  under  medical  supervision ;  their 
general  health  is  excellent ;  ophthalmia  is  almost 
unknown;  and  they  show  no  signs  of  that  low 
vitality  which  is  so  characteristic  of  children  in 
large  aggregated  schools.  The  greatest  care 
is,  of  course,  taken  in  the  selection  of  foster- 
mothers  ;  but  this  has  not  proved  an  insuperable 
obstacle  to  the  adoption  of  the  system  :  a  real 
and  lifelong  affection  springs  up  in  a  multitude 
of  cases  between  her  and  her  charges.  The  cost 
per  child  is  considerably  less  than  in  district 
schools  or  village  communities. 


Boarding-out 

The  most  natural  and  ideal  method  of  dealing 
with  a  deserted  and  homeless  child  is  to  place  it  in 
a  real  home  where  it  can  enjoy  the  love  and 
affection  of  foster-parents.  The  home  life  draws 
out  the  child's  individual  character  instead  of 
suppressing  it  as  institution  life  does.     It  grows  up 


STATE  CHILDREN  241 

with  other  children,  learns  with  them,  plays  with 
them,  gets  into  childish  scrapes,  and  loses  that 
sense  of  separation  and  strangeness  of  position 
which  in  the  rearing  of  children  is  above  all  things 
to  be  avoided.  Even  afflicted  children  seem  to 
acquire  in  a  wonderfully  short  time  the  devoted 
affection  of  a  foster-mother.  Their  appearance  may 
be  repulsive,  their  ailments  troublesome,  their 
habits  dirty,  but  nothing  seems  able  to  suppress 
the  love  with  which  women  are  inspired  for  any 
creature  which  is  dependent  upon  them.  Children 
boarded  out  in  private  families  become  absorbed  in 
the  general  life  of  the  village  in  which  they  are 
placed,  and  thus  escape  the  evils  inseparable  from 
the  dreary  routine  of  a  great  school.  In  many 
cases  they  have  been  known  to  assume  their  foster- 
parents'  names  :  they  receive  their  education  in  the 
village  school,  in  which  from  their  regularity  of 
attendance  and  their  general  quickness  they  are 
welcomed  by  managers  and  teachers  alike.  As 
regards  health,  boarded-out  children  are  un- 
doubtedly better  off  than  those  brought  up  in 
institutions.  Dr.  Barnardo  found  the  health  of  the 
children  whom  he  boarded  out  very  much  higher 
than  that  of  the  children  in  his  institutions,  and  on 
this  and  other  accounts  he  ended  by  almost  entirely 
abandoning  the  latter  system  for  the  former.  They 
are,  of  course,  not  exempt  from  measles  and  other 
epidemics  of  rural  life,  but  they  enjoy  an  almost 
complete  immunity  from  ophthalmia,  ringworm,  and 
eruptions  of  the  skin  from  which  children  in  neither 


242     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

country  nor  town  workhouses  can  be  pronounced 
free.  Most  boarded-out  children  become  in  every 
respect  members  of  their  foster-parents'  families ; 
they  acquire  a  home  in  which  they  can  take  refuge 
in  after-life,  during  intervals  of  employment  or  in 
times  of  sickness.  The  cost  of  boarding  out 
children  is  about  half  that  of  maintaining  them  in 
district  schools. 

Under  these  circumstances  it  is  surprising  that 
boarding-out  has  not  been  more  generally  adopted 
in  England.  In  Scotland  it  is  almost  universal ; 
ten  years  ago  it  was  stated  that  more  than  80 
per  cent,  of  the  children  chargeable  to  parochial 
authorities  are  provided  for  by  boarding  out. 
Ireland  is  the  country  in  which,  more  than  half 
a  century  ago,  the  system  was  first  invented  for  the 
benefit  of  Protestant  orphans  in  districts  where  the 
bulk  of  the  population  was  Roman  Catholic.  In  all 
the  Australian  colonies,  in  Tasmania,  and  New 
Zealand,  the  system  has  long  been  in  operation, 
with  the  most  satisfactory  results.  It  is  adopted  in 
many  of  the  United  States  of  America,  and  in  some 
Continental  nations.  It  has  also  been  chosen  by 
voluntary  societies.  The  Church  of  England 
Society  for  providing  Homes  for  Waifs  and  Strays 
boards  out  a  considerable  number  of  their  young 
children,  and  provides  small  homes  for  the  rest.  Dr. 
Barnardo,  who  began  by  trying  large  institutions,  and 
afterwards  village  communities,  adopted  boarding- 
out  twenty  years  before  his  death,  as  superior  to 
both.      He    told    the    committee    on    Poor    Law 


STATE    CHILDREN  243 

children  that  he  would  not  create  another  large 
institution  under  any  circumstances,  and  that  although 
he  had  had  many  opportunities  of  adding  to  his 
institutions  he  had  declined  to  do  so,  V  because 
boarding-out  is  so  much  better."  As  regards 
technical  training,  although  the  boys  boarded  out  in 
villages  may  be  little  better  off  than  those  in  insti- 
tutions, the  girls  are,  because  cottage  life  is  more 
educative  than  the  domestic  drudgery  of  a  large 
school.  The  girls  are  thus  better  fitted  to  be  wives 
and  general  servants. 

Dr.  Barnardo  did  more  for  his  children  than  the 
State  attempts.  He  gave  them  a  technical  training 
before  turning  them  out  to  earn  their  living.  How 
fortunate  was  the  destitute  child  who  fell  into  the 
hands  of  Dr.  Barnardo,  rather  than  into  that  of  the 
State  ! 

Experience  has  shown  that  in  a  system  of  this 
kind,  there  are  difficulties  to  overcome,  but  that 
these  are  not  insurmountable.  Foster-parents  have 
to  be  carefully  chosen,  but  of  these  the  supply  does 
not  seem  to  be  yet  exhausted.  In  the  first  instance 
they  may  be  taken  for  profit,  to  which  I  cannot  see 
any  objection,  but  Miss  Mason,  the  inspector  of  the 
Local  Government  Board,  testifies  that  in  many 
instances  the  foster-parents  become  so  attached  to 
the  children  that  they  would  ultimately  keep  them 
without  payment  rather  than  part  with  them.  The 
weekly  payment  is  small,  the  number  of  children  in 
each  home  is  restricted,  and  it  is  impossible,  with 
proper  safeguards,  that  the  system  should  degenerate 


244     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

into  baby-farming.  The  number  of  boarded-out 
children  in  any  one  village  should  be  limited.  The 
children  should  be  properly  watched  over  and 
inspected  by  public  authority,  but  not  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  harass  and  irritate  the  foster-parents. 
The  public  authority  which  pays  for  the  main- 
tenance of  these  children  has  a  right  to  satisfy  itself 
that  they  are  properly  cared  for ;  it  has  no  right  to 
treat  the  foster-parents  as  unworthy  of  trust  and  as 
desirous  of  evading  the  responsibilities  they  have 
undertaken.  The  present  Boarding-out  committees 
do  their  work  well,  and  if  Health  committees  were 
everywhere  established  on  the  Elberfeld  system, 
like  the  ladies'  committee  in  Manchester,  there 
would  always  be  a  suitable  body  to  which  public 
authority  could  entrust  the  supervision  of  boarded- 
out  children.  Inspection  should  not  be  too  in- 
quisitorial ;  the  best  inspectors  would  be  women  with 
medical  qualifications,  who  could  give  professional 
advice  at  their  visits  as  to  how  the  children  should 
be  treated  as  well  as  criticism  of  their  condition. 


Dr.  Barnardds  Homes 

No  chapter  on  destitute  children  would  be 
complete  without  some  description  of  the  work  to 
which  Dr.  Barnardo,  whose  opinions  have  been 
frequently  quoted  in  the  course  of  the  chapter, 
devoted  forty  years  of  his  valuable  life.  Dr. 
Barnardo  began  his  life-work  while  a  medical 
student  in  the  London  Hospital,  Whitechapel  Road. 


UN1VER5IT> 
STATE    CHILDREN  245 

He  tells  himself  the  story  of  the  first  boy  he  rescued 
and  of  the  revelation  of  street  misery  and  destitution 
which  this  child  revealed  to  him.  From  this  time 
his  good  works  increased  and  multiplied,  so  that  at 
the  time  of  his  death  there  were  between  eight  and 
nine  thousand  children  at  any  one  time  under  his 
care.  The  two  most  remarkable  features  of  his 
system  are — 

First,  that  he  appeals  to  the  love  and  affection 
dormant  in  the  heart  of  every  child,  however  its 
soul  may  have  been  starved  and  repressed.  The 
child's  love  awakens  love  in  the  breast  of  the  person 
who  has  charge  of  it,  whether  a  woman  with  whom 
it  is  boarded  out,  a  cottage  mother,  a  teacher  in  the 
school,  or  the  manager  of  a  kitchen,  a  laundry,  a 
sewing-class,  a  ship,  or  a  workshop.  The  relation 
which  Dr.  Barnardo's  system  seeks,  and  that  not  in 
vain,  to  establish  is  that  of  parent  and  child,  not 
that  of  master  and  servant.  Any  social  student  who 
investigates  Dr.  Barnardo's  establishments  cannot 
fail  to  be  struck  with  the  singular  spirit  of 
love  which  pervades  the  whole  atmosphere. 

Secondly,  the  work  does  not  cease  when  the  child 
has  grown  old  enough  to  gain  its  own  living  and 
stand  alone.  It  is  projected  forward  into  its  work- 
aday life,  so  long  as  it  needs  sympathy  and  support. 
Every  boy  and  girl  is  brought  up  "to  learn  and 
labour  truly  to  get  their  own  living  and  to  do  their 
duty  in  that  state  of  life  to  which  it  shall  please 
God  to  call  them."  Such  of  the  children  as  are 
suitable  are  sent  out  young  as  emigrants  to  Canada  ; 


246     THE    CHILDREN    OF   THE    NATION 

but  their  welfare  is  still  carefully  and  efficiently 
watched  over  from  Dr.  Barnardo's  homes.  All  boys 
and  girls  leave  the  school  with  attainments  fit  for 
the  work  of  life ;  places  are  found  for  them ;  they 
can  return  to  the  homes  if  in  distress.  Even 
cripples,  whom  industrial  schools  reject,  and  many 
of  whom  are  doomed  to  an  early  death,  are  sent 
out  with  the  rest,  and  brought  back  when  their 
strength  gives  out,  to  end  their  days  in  peace. 

The  social  significance  of  Dr.  Barnardo's  homes  is 
certainly  not  appreciated  by  the  public.  It  is  a 
work  not  of  charity  but  of  ransom.  Few  of  the 
eight  or  nine  thousand  children  in  the  homes  are 
without  a  legal  right  to  maintenance  and  education 
by  some  public  authority,  which  shovels  off  its  re- 
sponsibilities upon  Dr.  Barnardo.  If  the  Poor  Law 
statute  of  Queen  Elizabeth  were  faithfully  carried 
into  execution,  such  a  thing  as  a  destitute  child 
should  not  exist  in  the  land.  It  is  in  consequence 
of  public  neglect  of  duty,  called  by  the  President  of 
the  Local  Government  Board  ''defective  adminis- 
tration," that  the  necessity  for  such  a  work  as  Dr. 
Barnardo's  came  into  existence.  And  while  we 
admire  the  wisdom  and  self-devotion  which  has 
established  so  great  a  national  institution,  and 
while  we  make  every  exertion  to  maintain  its 
efficiency  now  that  its  author  has  gone,  we  must 
never  relax  our  efforts  to  summon  the  nation  to 
discharge  its  duty  to  its  children,  and  to  make  the 
existence  of  the  destitute  objects  who  now  crowd 
into  Dr.  Barnardo's  ever-open  doors  an  impossibility. 


CHAPTER   XV 

HEREDITARY     DISEASE 

Its  Causes 

ALTHOUGH  the  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from 
the  best  medical  testimony  available  is  that 
90  per  cent,  of  children  born  come  into  the  world 
free  from  hereditary  taint,  fairly  healthy  and  well 
nourished,  and  sent  forth  by  nature  with  the  capacity 
of  growing  up  into  capable  men  and  women,  there 
is  a  residuum  of  10  per  cent,  in  whom  the  sins 
of  their  fathers  have  sown  the  seeds  of  disease, 
and  from  whom  the  greatest  care  may  fail  to  avert 
their  pre-natal  doom.  This  unhappy  class  is,  we 
are  assured  by  medical  experience,  pretty  evenly 
distributed  amongst  all  sections  of  society  :  the  poor 
have  no  monopoly  of  it.  No  consideration  of  the 
question  of  the  health  of  the  children  of  the  nation 
would  be  complete  without  some  reference  to  it. 

The  two  great  causes  of  hereditary  disease  are 
alcoholism  and  syphilis.  There  are  others,  but 
their  effect  upon  the  general  health  of  the  people 

is  insignificant  in  comparison  with  that  of  the  two 

247 


248     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

mentioned  :  these  other  diseases  may  at  present  be 
safely  left  to  be  dealt  with  by  medical  science  in 
private  practice  and  in  hospitals.  Not  so  with 
alcoholism  and  syphilis.  If  any  effort  is  to  be  made 
to  prevent  the  deterioration  of  the  race,  which  is 
brought  about  in  the  10  per  cent,  residuum  by  these 
forms  of  disease,  the  subject,  however  unpleasant, 
must  receive  the  careful  consideration  of  public 
opinion  and  authority.  There  are  two  distinct 
questions  to  be  answered :  first,  what  can  be  done 
to  extinguish  the  causes  of  these  hereditary  diseases, 
so  that  they  shall  no  longer  be  transmitted  to 
innocent  children  yet  unborn  ?  And  secondly,  what 
remedial  measures  can  be  taken  to  avert  from  the 
victims  the  consequences  of  hereditary  taint  ? 


Alcoholism 

A  great  prelate  of  the  Church  is  reported  to  have 
once  said  that  he  would  rather  see  the  British  people 
free  than  sober  ;  and  this  saying  is  treasured  up 
and  constantly  repeated  by  those  who  champion  the 
vested  interests  of  brewers  and  publicans.  But  it 
is  certain  that  no  man  who  is  habitually  drunken 
can  be  in  any  real  sense  free  ;  he  is  the  slave  of 
his  own  passion  for  drink.  It  is  also  confidently 
alleged  that  you  cannot  make  people  sober  by  Act 
of  Parliament.  That  is  perfectly  true — "  leges  sine 
moribus  vance  " — but  it  is  equally  true  that  you  can 
by  Act  of  Parliament  give  every  encouragement  to 
the   provision  and  sale  of  drink,  so  that  the  poor 


HEREDITARY    DISEASE  249 

worker,  whose  sensuous  pleasures  are  few,  is  beset 
on  every  hand  by  the  temptation  to  the  only  form 
of  indulgence  which  his  lot  opens  to  him.  The 
subject  of  licensing  reform  and  temperance  legisla- 
tion is  too  vast  to  be  discussed  in  a  section  of  a 
chapter  of  this  book  ;  it  is  enough  to  observe  that 
the  result  of  more  than  half  a  century  of  strenuous 
effort  in  the  cause  of  temperance  reform  is  that 
the  towns  and  country  villages,  and  even  the  roads 
and  lanes,  are  still  covered  with  an  admitted 
super-abundance  of  public-houses  and  beer-houses, 
under  the  management  of  persons  who  have,  in 
almost  every  case,  a  strong  personal  interest  in 
selling  as  much  intoxicating  liquor  as  they  can 
possibly  contrive  to  do,  without  infringing  a  very 
imperfectly  administered  law.  The  amount  spent 
in  drink  in  the  United  Kingdom  would,  if  applied 
to  the  proper  maintenance  of  the  people,  feed  all 
the  children,  render  the  labour  of  mothers  un- 
necessary, and  place  every  home  in  a  condition 
of  domestic  comfort  ;  many  a  family  now  in  penury 
and  wretchedness  would  be  in  solvency  and  comfort, 
if  the  bread-winner  had  the  moral  strength  to  pass 
by  the  temptation  of  the  public-house,  and  pay  his 
weekly  earnings  into  the  hands  of  his  wife  to  be 
spent  on  his  children  and  his  home.  I  should  like 
to  see  the  working  people  of  Great  Britain  sober, 
for  then  they  would  become  free. 

In  the  eighteenth  century  the  richer  and  well- 
educated  classes  in  Great  Britain  were  notoriously 
drunken.    The  vice  is  indulged  in  now,  but  secretly, 


250     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

and  with  the  general  reprobation  of  the  classes. 
Education  is  producing  a  similar  effect  now  amongst 
the  masses  of  the  people.  The  reduction  of  public 
revenue  derived  from  the  importation  and  manu- 
facture of  beer  and  spirits  is  inconvenient  to  the 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  and  is  depressing  to 
the  shareholders  in  brewery  and  distillery  com- 
panies, but  it  is  a  phenomenon  that  every  true 
patriot  must  regard  with  unmixed  satisfaction,  as 
evidence  of  a  salutary  change  in  the  habits  of  the 
people.  The  Committee  on  Physical  Deterioration, 
who  were  "  convinced  that  the  abuse  of  alcoholic 
stimulants  was  a  most  potent  and  deadly  agent  of 
physical  deterioration,"  recommended  that  efforts 
should  be  made  to  bring  home  to  the  community 
at  large  the  gravity  of  the  issue,  and  the  extent 
to  which  individual  effort  could  promote  temperance. 
Dr.  Eichholz,  in  his  evidence,  called  attention  to 
a  proclamation  put  forth  by  the  "  Assistance 
Publique  "  at  Paris,  in  which  it  was  stated  that — 

"  L'alcoolism  est  l'empoisonnement  chronique  qui 
resulte  de  l'usage  habitual  de  l'alcool,  alors  meme 
que  celui-ci  ne  produirait  pas  l'ivresse. 

"  C'est  une  erreur  de  dire  que  l'alcool  est  n^ces- 
saire  aux  ouvriers  qui  se  livrent  a  des  travaux 
fatigants  qu'il  donne  du  cceur  a  l'ouvrage,  oil  qu'il 
r£pare  les  forces :  l'excitation  artificielle  qu'il  pro- 
cure fait  bien  vite  place  a  la  depression  nerveuse 
et  a  la  faiblesse ;  en  realite*  l'alcool  nest  utile  a 
personne ;  il  est  nuisible  pour  tout  le  monde. 

"  L'habitude  de  boire  des   eaux-de-vie  conduite 


HEREDITARY    DISEASE  251 

rapidement  a  l'alcoolisme ;  mais  les  boissons  dites 
hygienique  contiennent  aussi  de  l'alcool ;  il  n'y  a 
qu'une  difference  de  doses :  l'homme  qui  boit 
chaque  jour  une  quantity  immoddr^e  de  vin,  de 
cidre,  ou  de  biere,  devient  aussi  surement  alcoolique 
que  celui  qui  boit  de  l'eau-de-vie. 


"  L'habitude  de  boire  entrafne  la  disaffection  de  la 
famille,  Toubli  de  tous  les  devoirs  sociaux,  le  dugout 
du  travail,  la  misere,  le  vol,  et  le  crime.  Elle  mene 
pour  le  moins  a  l'hopital  ;  car  l'alcoolism  engendre 
les  maladies  les  plus  variees  et  les  plus  meurtrieres ; 
les  paralysies,  la  folie,  les  affections  de  l'estomac 
et  du  foie,  l'hydropysie ;  il  est  une  des  causes  les 
plus  frequentes  de  la  tuberculose.  Enfin,  il  com- 
pliques  et  aggrave  toutes  les  maladies  aigues  :  une 
fievre  typhoide,  une  pneumonie,  un  e'risepele,  qui 
seraient  b6nins  chez  un  homme  sobre,  tuent 
rapidement  le  buveur  alcoolique. 

11  Les  fautes  d'hygiene  des  parents  retombent  sur 
leurs  enfants ;  s'ils  ddpassent  les  premiers  mois, 
ils  sont  menaces  d'idiotie,  ou  de  lepilepsie,  ou  bien 
encore,  ils  sont  emport£s,  un  peu  plus  tard,  par  la 
m6ningite  tuberculeuse  ou  par  la  phthisic 

u  Pour  la  saute"  de  l'individu,  pour  l'6xistence  de  la 
famille,  pour  l'avenir  du  Pays,  l'alcoolism  est  un  des 
plus  terrible  f!6aux." 

An  authorised  public  document  of  this  kind  should 
be  put  forth  by  every  public  authority  ;  it  should  be 
posted  up  in  the  free  libraries,  the  post-offices,  the 


252     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

doors  of  churches  and  chapels,  the  courts  of  justice, 
and  every  other  public  place.  The  physiological 
facts  which  it  contains  should  be  taught  to  teachers 
in  all  training  colleges,  elementary  and  secondary, 
subsidised  by  public  money,  and  taught  in  all 
Government  schools. 

The  effects  of  the  alcoholism  of  parents  upon 
their  offspring  is  not,  as  in  syphilis,  the  production 
of  any  peculiar  specific  disease,  but  a  general 
increased  tendency  to  idiocy,  epilepsy,  and  other 
diseases  which  arise  from  other  causes.  There 
is  no  call  upon  the  public  authority  to  provide 
special  hospitals  for  them  :  they  only  require  more 
care,  but  of  the  same  sort,  as  other  children,  to 
which,  born  with  a  disadvantage  through  no  fault 
of  their  own,  they  seem  to  have  an  overwhelming 
claim.  If  adequate  provision  were  made  by  society 
for  the  proper  bringing  up  of  all  children,  those  of 
drunken  parents  would  require  no  special  treatment. 
As  it  is  they  have  a  somewhat  stronger  claim  upon 
society  than  others  for  the  performance  of  that 
duty  which,  at  present,  society  impartially  neglects. 

Syphilis 

There  are  persons  who  view  with  disapproba- 
tion any  attempt  by  public  authority  to  suppress 
syphilitic  disease.  They  regard  it  as  a  specially 
designed  punishment  for  incontinence ;  they  look 
upon  the  fear  of  the  disease  as  a  valuable  incentive 
to  chastity  ;  and  they  doubt  whether  the  condition 


HEREDITARY    DISEASE  253 

of  the  people  would  be  morally  improved  if  it 
could  be  entirely  stamped  out.  Whether  such 
persons  constitute  a  majority  of  the  people  or  not, 
their  honest  and  vehement  opposition  has  success- 
fully thwarted  all  efforts  by  the  Government  of  this 
country  to  deal  with  this  disease  as  it  has  been 
dealt  with  by  almost  all  the  civilised  States  in  the 
world.  Into  the  ethical  question  I  do  not  propose 
to  enter,  but  the  ravages  of  the  disease  are  so 
extensive,  visiting  as  they  do  the  sins  of  the  fathers 
upon  the  children,  literally  to  the  third  and  fourth 
generation,  that  it  is  impossible  to  pass  the  matter 
by  in  silence  in  a  book  about  the  children  of  the 
nation.  The  Committee  on  Physical  Deterioration 
did  not  venture  to  make  any  recommendation  upon 
the  subject,  except  "  the  appointment  of  a  com- 
mission of  inquiry  into  the  prevalence  and  effects 
of  syphilis,  having  special  regard  to  the  possibility 
of  making  the  disease  notifiable,  and  to  the 
adequacy  of  hospital  accommodation  for  its  treat- 
ment." No  such  inquiry  has  been  instituted,  either 
by  the  late  or  present  Government.  Possibly  both 
considered  further  inquiry  to  be  useless ;  the  facts 
are  well  known  :  what  is  wanted  is  not  inquiry,  but 
action. 

Ravages  amongst  Children 

Of  the  cruel  suffering  and  disease  caused  by 
this  hereditary  taint  amongst  innocent  children, 
abundant  evidence  was  given  before  the  Committee 
on    Physical     Deterioration.       "It    is    the    great 


254     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

element,"  says  Dr.  Kerr,  "in  congenital  blindness 
and  deafness,  and  in  the  cases  that  go  blind  and 
deaf — children  who  have  gone  to  the  age  of  10 
or  ii  gradually  getting  blind  and  deaf.  These 
cases  are  practically  all  due  to  syphilis  ;  they  present 
the  other  characteristics  of  syphilis — interstitial 
iritis  and  internal  ear  deafness,  and  they  have 
generally  the  brain  deterioration  that  goes  with 
it.  A  certain  number  become  nearly  blind,  nearly 
stone-deaf,  and  frequently  feeble-minded  during 
school  life  from  the  development  of  the  hereditary 
disease.  There  is  no  doubt  in  my  own  mind  that 
inherited  syphilis  is  responsible  for  a  much  larger 
amount  of  gross  defect  and  permanent  ill-nutrition 
among  children  than  can  be  definitely  assigned  to 
it.  The  disease  should  be  properly  controlled." 
"  Numbers  of  children,"  says  Sir  Victor  Horsley, 
"  die  within  the  first  six  months  of  life  from  what  is 
called  bronchitis.  A  number  of  those  are  cases  of 
congenital  syphilis  of  the  lungs.  Of  course  there 
is  ordinary  infective  bronchitis,  but  a  great  many 
of  them  are  syphilitic.  Syphilis  in  the  female  is 
still  more  prejudicial  to  the  children  than  in  the 
male.  I  think  that  is  a  source  of  general  physical 
deterioration.  When  a  female  becomes  infected  at 
the  child-bearing  period,  the  mucous  membrane  of 
the  womb  becomes  altered,  and  with  the  first 
syphilitic  child  which  is  born,  you  find  the  placenta 
has  actual  organic  changes  in  it,  consequently  the 
womb  must  be  affected  permanently  for  the  rest 
of  that  woman's  life.     From  the  moment  the  first 


HEREDITARY    DISEASE  255 

syphilitic  child  is  born,  you  can  say  that  damage 
is  done  to  that  woman  as  a  child-bearing  individual 
for  the  rest  of  her  life."  The  same  witness  describes 
the  downward  progress  of  a  syphilitic  child,  "who 
is  going  to  live,  and  who  will  be  a  deteriorated 
member  of  the  community.  Soon  after  birth 
the  child  will  present  snuffles  and  rashes  on  the 
skin  ;  perhaps  nothing  more.  The  mucous  orifices 
are  inflamed,  and  perhaps  nothing  more.  Then 
as  it  goes  on  to  second  dentition,  you  will  find  that 
its  growth  is  proceeding  slowly  ;  as  its  teeth  appear 
you  will  find  them  presenting  the  ordinary  signs  of 
congenital  syphilis — notched  and  peg-like.  By  the 
time  the  child  has  arrived  at  puberty  it  is  obviously 
a  stunted  individual  ;  the  bones  are  small,  and  the 
muscles  are  small  and  poorly  developed.  There  is 
a  very  large  class  of  mentally  deficient  children, 
whose  condition  is  due  to  congenital  syphilis  alone. 
As  soon  as  they  arrive  at  puberty,  syphilitic  children 
then  are  liable  to  get  diseases  of  the  eye,  and  of  the 
bones.  It  is  often  not  actual  caries  ;  but  it  is  an 
inflammatory  thickening  and  often  causes  destruc- 
tion of  the  bone.  Finally,  when  they  come  to 
the  stress  of  life,  when  they  get  to  about  35, 
even  before  30,  at  27  sometimes,  they  begin 
to  break  down  from  various  nervous  diseases. 
Their  expectation  of  life  is  very  limited.  The 
children  of  a  syphilitic  family  are  all  hit  more  or 
less.  The  infection  at  one  end  of  the  family  may 
be  slight,  but  you  cannot  say  that  any  child  of  such 
a  family  whom  you  can  trace  escapes  during  his 


256     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

whole  life,  and  is  really  a  healthy  individual."  The 
evidence  of  Sir  Victor  Horsley  was  abundantly 
corroborated  by  other  medical  witnesses.  Sir 
Alfred  Cooper,  who  twice  represented  Great 
Britain  at  the  Brussels  International  Conference 
on  this  disease,  was  asked  to  describe  the  ravages 
and  complications  that  ensued  from  it.  He  re- 
plied, "  I  should  place  insanity  as  almost  one  of 
the  first  things  ;  idiocy ;  diseases  of  the  bones, 
producing  deformity  and  disfigurement ;  diseases 
of  the  eyes,  producing  blindness  ;  diseases  of  the 
ear,  producing  deafness  ;  diseases  of  the  internal 
organs,  causing  defective  nutrition  and  deficient 
development  ;  diseases  of  the  nervous  system, 
producing  insidious  forms  of  paralysis,  locomotor 
ataxy  ;  and  it  is  responsible  for  a  large  proportion 
of  the  cases  of  lunacy  and  idiocy  in  our  asylums." 
It  was  further  shown  by  medical  testimony  that 
the  other  cause  of  hereditary  diseases,  alcoholism, 
aggravated  in  many  cases  the  mischief  of  syphilis. 
"  That  is  very  well  realised  in  the  profession,"  says 
Sir  Victor  Horsley.  "  Alcohol  is  a  particularly 
aggravating  factor  in  the  progress  of  syphilis.  If 
a  person  becomes  at  all  alcoholic,  he  breaks  down 
more  quickly  from  all  forms  of  syphilitic  trouble." 
The  effects  of  the  disease  are  visible  in  the  second 
generation,  and  may  even  extend  to  the  third, 
though  of  this  last  fact  there  is  no  reliable  scientific 
evidence.  Owing  to  a  mistaken  delicacy  in  writers 
and  speakers  on  public  health,  a  most  profound 
ignorance    pervades   all    classes   of  society    as    to 


HEREDITARY    DISEASE  257 

the  extent  to  which  the  disease  prevails,  as  to  its 
shocking  consequences  upon  innocent  persons,  and 
as  to  the  means  which  are  available  for  its 
prevention  and  cure. 

Preventive  Measures 

It  is  on  behalf  of  the  innocent  victims  of  the 
disease,  and  especially  of  children  whose  lives  may 
be  blasted  from  birth  through  no  fault  of-their  own, 
that  the  intervention  of  public  authority  is  demanded. 
If  public  morality  demands  that  no  special  steps 
should  be  taken  to  protect  the  primary  sufferers 
from  this  disease,  it  seems  equally  obvious  from 
the  same  point  of  view  that  no  special  privileges 
and  immunities  should  be  accorded  to  it ;  it  should 
be  treated  in  the  same  manner  and  on  the  same 
principles  as  all  other  contagious  diseases  are 
treated,  and  the  sufferers  from  it  should  be  required 
to  surrender  so  much  of  their  individual  liberty  as 
is  essential  to  public  safety.  A  person  affected  is 
as  much  a  source  of  public  danger  to  other  people 
and  to  innocent  children  as  a  person  who  is 
suffering  from  small-pox.  Why  should  such  a  man 
or  woman  be  exempted  from  the  obligation  to 
notify  his  or  her  condition  to  the  officer  of  health, 
and  to  submit  to  such  treatment  either  in  hospital 
or  elsewhere  as  the  interest  of  the  public  may 
require?  To  permit  concealment  of  the  danger 
from  the  public  officers  of  health  is  a  privilege  not 
accorded  to  sufferers  from  scarlet   fever  or  small- 


258     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

pox.  There  is  nothing  at  all  impracticable  in 
requiring  and  enforcing  such  a  notification.  M  It 
is  what  they  do  in  Russia,"  says  Sir  Alfred  Cooper. 
"I  was  in  St.  Petersburg  in  1875,  and  they  have 
greatly  checked  syphilis  there.  Directly  there  is 
a  case  it  is  reported,  whether  it  is  a  prince  or 
princess,  or  duke  or  duchess,  or  even  one  of  the 
grand  dukes.  If  one  of  the  grand  dukes  gets 
syphilis  it  would  have  to  be  reported,  and  he 
would  be  surrounded  by  police  regulations,  and  it 
would  be  quite  impossible  for  him  to  pass  it  on 
to  anybody."  One  would  be  very  reluctant  to 
admit  that  the  law  in  this  country  is  less  powerful 
than  in  Russia,  or  that,  if  notification  and  submission 
were  prescribed  by  statute,  any  person,  of  however 
high  rank  and  social  influence,  would  be  able  to 
set  himself  up  against  the  law  and  refuse  to  be 
treated.  In  Scandinavia,  hospital  treatment  for 
syphilis  is  compulsory  :  there  are  no  special 
hospitals — what  are  called  "  lock  hospitals  "  in  this 
country — for  the  disease  ;  patients  are  treated  in 
the  general  public  hospitals,  so  that  the  most 
perfect  records  of  the  cases  of  syphilis  and  its 
sequelae  are  obtained.  It  was  from  these  that 
general  paralysis  was  first  ascertained  to  be 
frequently  of  syphilitic  origin.  In  our  country  a 
patient  may  receive  his  first  treatment  in  a  "  lock 
hospital " ;  after  his  discharge  some  secondary 
symptom  supervenes ;  he  is  treated  in  another 
hospital  where  his  antecedents  are  unknown  ;  and 
his  disease  is  not  attributed  to  its  true  cause.     Such 


HEREDITARY    DISEASE  259 

records  as  we  possess  of  the  extent  and  complica- 
tions of  the  disease  are  thus  rendered  fallacious. 


Hospitals 

If  the  hospital  accommodation  for  the  treatment 
of  this  or  any  other  disease  is  insufficient,  the 
municipalities  have,  as  the  Sanitary  authority 
under  the  Public  Health  Act,  the  power  to  supply 
it,  and  can  recover  the  cost  of  treatment  from  the 
patient  if  he  is  able  to  pay.  Treatment  in  a  general 
hospital  is,  in  the  opinion  of  most  medical  authorities, 
to  be  preferred  to  provision  by  special  "  lock 
hospitals."  There  is  nothing  to  prevent  Municipal 
authorities,  without  establishing  any  general  hospital 
of  their  own,  entering  into  arrangements  with  the 
managers  of  any  hospital  to  provide  accommodation 
for  syphilitic  patients  at  a  fixed  charge.  It  would 
be  probably  an  abuse  of  the  charitable  funds,  which 
are  the  means  of  support  of  most  hospitals,  to  apply 
them  to  such  objects,  and  might  in  the  present 
state  of  public  opinion  lead,  if  known,  to  a  diminution 
of  hospital  subscriptions  ;  but  there  is  no  such 
objection  if  the  cost  is  defrayed  by  public  authority, 
and  no  charge  is  imposed  on  the  funds  of  the 
hospital.  But  there  is  another  obstacle  to  effective 
treatment.  Sir  Victor  Horsley  says  that  his 
hospital  takes  in  cases  of  syphilis.  The  real 
trouble  is  that  an  ordinary  syphilitic  patient  does 
not  feel  so  ill  as  to  consent  to  enter  a  hospital 
in  the  vast  majority  of  cases.     The  most  dangerous 


260     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

patients  are  not  ill  bodily,  and  therefore  they  will 
not  enter  a  hospital  ;  they  persist  in  going  on  with 
their  occupation  and  become  sources  of  infection  to 
innocent  people.  Dr.  Mott,  of  the  Charing  Cross 
Hospital,  says  that  the  poorer  people  do  not  seem 
to  know  the  dangers  of  syphilis.  Perhaps  they 
may  go  to  the  hospital,  but  as  soon  as  the  sore 
has  healed  they  do  not  attend  any  longer.  Unless 
they  had  some  serious  nervous  disease,  Dr.  Mott 
would  not  take  them  into  the  general  hospital 
because  he  has  no  room  for  them.  The  necessary 
course  of  treatment  is  a  long  one.  "As  a  rule," 
he  says,  "the  poorer  classes  are  either  not  treated 
at  all  or  are  treated  by  quacks  and  chemists,  or 
else  as  soon  as  the  sore  has  passed  away  and 
they  have  no  further  trouble,  and  when  it  does 
not  interfere  with  their  work,  they  go  away  and 
do  not  come  back." 


Detention 

All  this  evidence  points  to  the  conclusion  that 
some  power  of  detaining  in  hospital  those  who 
are  suffering  from  this  disease  is  essential  to  any 
attempt  to  deal  effectively  with  its  ravages.  It 
is  quite  true  that  of  late  years  the  primary  disease 
has,  in  the  opinion  of  medical  authority,  become 
less  virulent ;  it  does  not  necessarily  follow  that  the 
secondary  effects  upon  the  victims  of  the  disease 
and  their  offspring  have  also  become  less  extensive 
and  less  michievous.     Our  hospital  records  do  not 


HEREDITARY    DISEASE  261 

enable  us  to  speak  with  certainty  upon  this  point ; 
because  the  cause  of  these  secondary  effects  are, 
in  so  many  cases,  hidden  and  unrecorded.  The 
detention  of  a  person,  whose  freedom  is  a  source  of 
public  danger,  is  politically  and  ethically  justifiable. 
It  is  entirely  a  question  of  possibility  and  expediency. 
What  is  done  in  Russia  and  Norway  cannot  be 
wholly  impracticable  in  Great  Britain.  A  person, 
with  the  infection  of  small-pox  upon  him,  is  now 
restrained  by  law  from  mixing  with  his  fellows 
in  such  a  way  as  to  spread  infection  ;  there  is  no 
reason  why  a  person  suffering  from  syphilis  should 
not  be  put  under  similar  restraint.  It  is  entirely 
a  matter  dependent  on  public  opinion.  If  the 
people  realised  the  frightful  misery  which  this 
disease  brings  upon  their  innocent  children,  and 
the  economic  injury  to  the  nation  which  is  caused 
by  breeding  a  class  of  degenerates,  Governments, 
imperial  and  local,  would  soon  find  themselves 
compelled  to  adopt  remedial  measures. 


t 


CHAPTER   XVI 


THE    HOME 


Its  Antiquity 

THE  family  and  the  home  in  which  it  lives 
are  the  most  ancient  of  human  institutions. 
They  have  probably  descended  to  us  from  pre- 
human times  and  from  ancestors  who  were  not 
yet  men.  Without  a  home  it  is  impossible  for 
children  to  be  properly  brought  up,  and  their 
character  and  faculties  healthily  developed.  To 
this  proposition  no  objection  would  in  general  be 
made,  and  yet  in  our  country  both  in  the  towns 
and  villages  there  are  thousands  of  families  who 
possess  nothing  deserving  of  the  name  of  home. 
In  Chinese  civilisation,  the  oldest  and  most  stable 
that  the  world  has  yet  produced,  the  home  and 
the  family  are  made  the  basis  of  society.  Every 
Chinaman  belongs  to  a  family,  and  has  a  home 
in  which  in  trouble  or  destitution  he  can  take 
refuge,  unless  he  has  by  misconduct  forfeited  his 
rights  and  been  expelled  from  his  family.  It  is 
these    outcasts    who    form    the   bulk   of    Chinese 


262 


THE    HOME  263 

coolie  emigrants ;  their  great  hope  and  object  is 
to  get  back  again  to  their  own  country  and  obtain 
re-admission  to  their  families.  Unfortunately  it  is 
from  these  that  Western  civilisation  for  the  most 
part  derives  its  conception  of  Chinese  character. 
We  know  little  or  nothing  of  the  Chinese  who 
stay  at  home. 

Overcrowding 

Great  efforts  have  been  made  in  late  years  in 
this  country  to  grapple  with  the  problem  of  housing 
the  population,  and  to  provide  in  town  and  country 
wholesome  and  decent  homes  for  the  poorest  of  the 
people.  Much,  however,  still  remains  to  be  done. 
It  is  useless  to  expect  reform  from  the  discontent 
of  the  people  inhabiting  their  squalid  dwellings. 
Custom  makes  them  contented  with  their  lot. 
Misery  drives  them  to  the  consolation  of  drink, 
and  drink  blunts  their  sensibility  to  the  squalor 
with  which  they  are  surrounded,  and  deadens  all 
desire,  if  it  ever  existed,  for  improvement.  Salvation 
must  come  to  such  people  from  without.  If  trans- 
planted into  better  surroundings,  the  love  of  home 
may  revive.  Overcrowding  in  unhealthy  dwellings 
is  one  of  the  main  causes  of  drink  and  vice,  and 
reformation  in  such  an  environment  is  impossible. 
The  first  active  steps  which  have  been  taken  by 
public  authority  have  been  accordingly  directed  to 
the  destruction  of  unhealthy  slum  dwellings  and 
to  the  clearing  of  slum  areas  in  London  and  the 
great    towns.      There   are    ample   powers   in   the 


264     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

Public  Health  Acts  for  this  purpose  ;  the  difficulty 
is  to  get  the  Sanitary  authorities  to  put  these  powers 
into  force.  If  the  people  themselves  who  are  most 
interested  in  the  destruction  of  dwellings  not  fit 
for  human  habitation  would  take  sufficient  interest 
in  their  own  welfare  to  elect  municipal  councils 
that  would  put  into  operation  all  the  provisions  of 
the  Public  Health  Acts,  reform  would  speedily  be 
effected. 

Municipal  Activity 

Many  Town  Councils  have  been  leading  the  way 
in  enterprises  of  this  kind.  In  the  report  of  the 
Committee  on  Physical  Deterioration  attention  is 
called  to  some  of  these.  In  Manchester  the 
conditions  as  to  housing  are  very  greatly  improved. 
The  majority  of  the  worst  type  of  houses  have 
been  entirely  cleared  away  and  a  great  many 
courts  have  been  opened  out ;  but  there  are  still 
3,000  back-to-back  houses  in  the  city,  and  in 
the  centre  206  common  lodging-houses,  described 
as  insanitary,  containing  5,821  inhabitants.  From 
Liverpool,  Preston,  Wolverhampton,  and  Sheffield 
reports  tell  the  same  tale  in  varying  degrees.  In 
Glasgow,  where  a  generation  ago  the  conditions  of 
existence  were  perhaps  harder  and  more  depressing 
than  in  any  other  in  Great  Britain,  there  is  great 
improvement  to  record.  In  the  opinion  of  Dr. 
Scott,  certifying  surgeon  in  that  city,  the  Cor- 
poration have  done  their  very  best.  Rickets, 
which    had    reached    terrible    proportions    twenty 


THE    HOME  265 

years  ago,  has  been  reduced  owing  to  the  improve- 
ment effected  in  the  conditions  under  which  people 
now  live.  Dr.  Chalmers,  Medical  Officer  of  Health 
in  Glasgow,  thinks  that  but  for  the  one-roomed 
house  difficulty  the  death-rate  would  be  something 
like  1 8  or  19  per  thousand.  In  London  the 
number  of  cubic  feet  which  each  individual  should 
have  is  prescribed  by  a  special  Act  of  Parliament, 
but  as  the  enforcement  of  the  law  is  in  the  hands 
of  the  Borough  Councils,  its  application  is  varying 
and  irregular.  Under  the  apathy  of  the  people 
in  Borough  Council  elections,  the  councillors  have 
the  fear  of  vested  interests  before  their  eyes,  more 
than  the  fear  of  the  people.  The  standard  is  very 
low,  300  feet  for  each  person  in  a  room  occupied 
by  night  only,  and  400  feet  for  a  room  occupied 
by  day  as  well ;  but  even  this  low  standard  the 
County  Council  cannot  get  enforced.  The  London 
County  Council  has  cleared  many  insanitary  areas, 
has  done  something  towards  the  provision  of 
dwellings,  and  has  assumed  control  of  common 
lodging-houses  and  effected  a  marked  improvement 
in  them.  On  the  other  hand,  Tyneside,  Dundee, 
Edinburgh,  the  Staffordshire  Potteries,  and  to 
some  extent  Sheffield,  are  mentioned  as  districts 
which  have  suffered  in  whole  or  in  part  from  the 
neglect  of  the  local  authorities  to  deal  with  glaring 
evils.  In  Dundee  the  factory  inspector  regards 
the  men  and  women  working  in  certain  jute-mills 
as  the  poorest  specimens  of  humanity  he  has  ever 
seen.     " There  are,"  he  says,  "a  great  number  of 


266     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

single-room  and  two-room  tenements  in  Dundee, 
and  big  blocks  having  no  privy  accommodation  at 
all  except  a  common  one  in  the  yard."  In  the 
poorer  districts  of  Edinburgh,  according  to  Dr. 
Mackenzie,  no  less  than  45  per  cent,  of  the 
population  are  living  in  one-  or  two-roomed 
dwellings.  In  his  Report  to  the  Royal  Commission 
on  Physical  Training  he  calls  attention  to  the  fact 
that  the  children  from  these  dwellings  were  very 
markedly  inferior  in  health,  in  physique,  and  in 
mental  capacity  to  the  average.  The  children 
from  one-roomed  houses  were  distinctly  worse  than 
those  from  two-roomed.  Mrs.  Mackenzie,  who 
assisted  her  husband  in  his  inquiry,  told  the 
committee  that  76  per  cent,  of  the  population  lived 
under  these  conditions,  and  in  these  one-  and  two- 
roomed  dwellings  there  were  often  as  many  as  nine 
children  besides  the  father  and  mother — a  home 
probably  far  more  overcrowded  than  those  of  the 
Simian  forefathers  of  our  race.  The  City  Council 
of  Edinburgh  took  no  heed  of  these  reports,  nor 
did  the  Scottish  Local  Government  Board,  which 
in  such  a  case  had  complete  power  to  initiate 
reform.  In  Sheffield,  which  has,  however,  now 
awakened  from  its  apathy  and  begun  vigorous 
reform,  Mrs.  Greenwood,  a  sanitary  inspector, 
described  the  drainage  as  bad,  many  rubble  sewers 
being  still  in  existence,  and  the  sanitary  conditions 
shocking  in  respect  to  a  large  number  of  unpaved 
courts  which  receive  the  contents  of  the  middens, 
and  are  therefore  saturated  with  filth.     There  are 


THE    HOME  267 

15,000  back-to-back  dwellings,  most  of  them  with 
no  more  than  three  rooms,  and  sometimes  occupied 
by  eight,  ten,  or  even  twelve  persons.  Miss 
Garnett,  the  head  of  Fenton  House,  a  settlement 
of  ladies  for  working  amongst  the  poor  in  the 
Potteries,  says  that  more  than  two  bedrooms  in 
a  house  are  rarely  to  be  found  in  that  district,  and 
these  houses  are  sometimes  occupied  by  eight 
adults.  Most  of  the  bad  houses  are  owned  by 
members  of  the  local  bodies,  and  the  sanitary 
inspectors  are  too  much  in  awe  of  their  employers 
to  carry  out  their  duty,  the  only  hope  of  a  change, 
short  of  a  drastic  interference  from  headquarters, 
lay,  in  her  opinion,  in  a  registration  of  the  owners 
of  slum  property  and  the  rendering  the  Medical 
Officer  of  Health  independent  of  the  local 
authority. 

Apathy  of  the  People 

As  to  the  relative  proportion  of  towns  which  do, 
and  do  not,  put  in  force  the  provisions  respecting 
overcrowding  in  the  Public  Health  Acts  we  have 
no  data  to  determine.  The  Committee  on  Physical 
Deterioration  attributed  the  neglect  which  had 
been  brought  to  their  notice,  partly  to  a  reluctance 
to  incur  the  necessary  expenditure,  a  principle  of 
wasteful  and  extravagant  economy  which  pervades 
our  whole  public  administration,  and  partly  to  the 
fact  that  while  the  interests  of  manufacturers  and 
property   owners    have   been   alleged    to   interfere 


268     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

with  the  proper  exercise  of  the  functions  of  local 
administration,  there  is  behind  the  whole  system 
no  sufficient  driving  power  to  secure  that  adequate 
pressure  shall  be  brought  to  bear  on  those  public 
authorities  which  are  careless  or  indifferent. 


Stimulants  to  Reform 

Many  people,  like  Miss  Garnett  in  the  Potteries, 
hope  for  such  a  driving  power  in  the  Local  Govern- 
ment Board,  but  the  experience  of  thirty  years 
shows  that  to  look  for  the  initiation  of  reforms 
from  that  quarter  is  hopeless.  With  a  professional 
and  scientific  administration  like  that  of  Germany, 
an  impulse  from  headquarters  may  guide  and 
stimulate  the  local  administration,  but  in  our 
British  system  such  an  influence  can  only  be 
spasmodic  and  ineffective.  The  permanent  official, 
whose  sympathies  and  associations  are  entirely 
those  of  the  richer  classes,  is  no  ardent  reformer, 
ready  to  spend  himself  in  the  interest  of  the  poor  ; 
he  is  always  disposed  to  leave  things  as  they  are. 
The  Parliamentary  Minister  is  an  amateur,  unskilled 
in  the  art  of  administration,  dependent  on  his 
permanent  officials  to  preserve  him  from  making 
a  fool  of  himself  in  public  life,  and  seldom  holds 
his  office  long  enough  to  acquire  the  experience 
essential  to  the  reformer's  task.  He  loses  his  office 
before  he  becomes  qualified.  There  is  a  driving 
force  latent  in   our   midst,    which,    if  it   could   be 


THE    HOME  269 

aroused  into  activity,  would  exercise  an  irresistible 
pressure  upon  local  administrators  who  are  careless 
or  indifferent — the  power  which  the  people  possess 
but  never  exercise  at  local  elections.  It  is  the 
people  who  elect,  or  rather  who  have  the  power 
to  elect,  the  local  authorities  which  are,  as  the 
committee  complains,  reluctant  to  incur  the  expendi- 
ture necessary  for  public  health,  and  who  succumb 
to  the  interests  of  manufacturers  and  property 
owners.  If  some  modern  Prophet  could  stir  up  the 
common  people  to  take  an  enlightened  interest  in 
their  own  welfare  and  that  of  their  wives  and 
children,  an  interest  strong  enough  to  induce  them 
to  go  and  record  their  votes  at  the  election  of 
Municipal  Councillors  and  Poor  Law  Guardians, 
there  would  be  a  driving  force  called  into  action 
which  would  sweep  all  obstacles  from  before  it, 
and  establish  a  reform  of  public  health  that  would 
change  the  face  of  the  present  life  of  the  poor. 
There  were  two  other  suggestions  made  by  Miss 
Garnett  and  other  witnesses  and  approved  by  the 
Committee.  One  was  the  registration  of  the 
owners  of  slum  property.  The  bargain  made 
between  the  owner  and  the  tenant  is  not  of  a  kind 
which  greatly  advances  the  welfare  of  the  com- 
munity. What  the  owner  stipulates  is  in  reality 
this  :  "I  will  give  you  the  occupation  of  a  single 
room  in  which  you  and  your  family  may  herd  like 
pigs,  in  a  condition  destructive  to  the  health  and 
morality  of  yourself,  your  children,  and  your 
neighbours,  so  long  as  you  can  contrive  to  scrape 


270     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

together  5s.  a  week  and  pay  it  to  my  agent."  The 
tenant  either  earns  this  sum  by  the  sweated  labour 
of  himself,  his  wife,  and  children,  or  he  begs, 
borrows,  or  steals  it.  The  owner  receives  the 
money  weekly  and  lives  on  it  in  a  more  aristocratic 
quarter  of  the  town  in  comfort  and  respectability. 
The  community  has  a  right  to  know  by  whom 
such  a  contract,  greatly  detrimental  to  public 
interest,  is  made.  The  second  reform  proposed 
to  grant  security  of  tenure  to  Medical  Officers  of 
Health,  who  as  a  rule  in  England  hold  office  at 
the  goodwill  of  the  local  authority.  The  com- 
mittee observed  that  such  security  was  enjoyed  in 
Scotland  and  in  London,  and  were  of  opinion  that 
in  no  case,  unless  convicted  of  misconduct,  should 
a  Medical  Officer  of  Health,  not  engaged  in  private 
practice,  be  removed  without  the  consent  of  the 
Local  Government  Board,  and  that  in  all  areas 
above  a  certain  population  he  should  be  required 
to  give  his  whole  time  to  the  work. 

New  Slums 

It  is,  however,  of  little  use  to  clear  insanitary 
areas  and  displace  slum  tenants,  unless  those  who 
are  turned  out  have  some  better  home  to  go  to. 
All  round  London  and  the  great  towns  which  are 
increasing  in  population,  may  be  witnessed  the 
creation  of  new  dwellings  crowded  together  as 
closely  as  the  law  will  permit,  which  will  in  time 
become  new  slums  and  require  to  be  in  their  turn 


THE    HOME  271 

destroyed  by  future  local  authorities.  The  sanitary 
powers  of*  a  city  do  not  in  general  extend  beyond 
its  own  limits.  It  is  just  outside  the  limits  that 
the  mischief  arises.  Land  which  a  few  years  ago 
had  only  an  agricultural  value  becomes  what  is 
known  as  "building  land."  The  owner  becomes 
suddenly  enriched  by  no  exertion  of  his  own.  He 
lets  the  land  to  the  jerry-builder  who  covers  it 
with  as  many  monotonous  streets  of  ugly  houses 
as  can  be  crammed  upon  it.  There  are  no  gardens, 
only  little  squalid  back-yards,  no  open  spaces,  no 
broad  streets,  no  reserve  of  natural  beauty.  If 
there  are  trees,  they  are  all  promptly  cut  down. 
The  lawT  might  have  interfered  and  provided  that 
the  land  over  which  a  town  grows  should  be  laid 
out  according  to  some  predetermined  plan,  with 
open  spaces,  broad  avenues,  gardens  to  every 
dwelling-house,  and  so  forth.  This  would  be  no 
injustice  to  the  owner.  He  already  realises  a 
great  unearned  increment  on  the  value  of  his  land, 
because  without  any  act  or  contrivance  of  his  own, 
the  town  has  grown  in  that  particular  direction ; 
and  he  has  no  grievance  to  complain  of  if  the 
community  by  which  this  increased  value  is  created 
attaches  such  conditions  to  the  buildings  to  be 
erected  as  will  make  the  new  suburb  healthy  and 
pleasant.  But  vested  interests  have  been  too 
powerful  for  the  public  interests,  and  new  suburbs 
are  laid  out  in  most  cases  with  the  sole  object 
of  making  as  much  profit  out  of  them  as  the 
owner  and    builder   can  jointly  contrive,  with  the 


272      THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

result  that  the  new  dwellings  are  as  ugly,  as 
squalid,  and  will  soon  become  as  unhealthy  as  the 
old  ones. 

Rural  Life  for  Workers 

Professor  Cunningham,  who  was  Chairman  of 
the  Anthropometrical  Committee  of  the  British 
Association,  does  not  think  it  would  be  possible 
under  the  very  best  conditions  of  town-life  to 
produce  conditions  in  which  the  poor  could  live, 
which  would  equal  those  of  the  country.  "  The 
more  nearly,"  he  says,  "  you  can  approach  the 
rural  life,  the  greater  amount  of  certainty  you  will 
have  that  there  will  be  an  improvement  in  the 
physical  condition  of  the  people."  The  establish- 
ment of  healthy  garden  cities,  and  of  healthy 
garden  suburbs  in  the  vicinity  of  existing  cities, 
in  which  workers  could  dwell  and  be  carried  to 
their  labour  in  the  towns  by  the  cheap,  rapid, 
and  easy  methods  of  transport  which  are  now 
undergoing  such  extensive  development,  would 
ensure  a  great  improvement  in  the  physical 
conditions  of  the  workers  themselves,  and  a  still 
ereater  one  in  that  of  their  wives  and  children. 
A  sufficient  number  of  experiments  of  this  kind 
have  been  tried  by  private  benevolence  and  by 
employers  who  appreciate  the  advantage  of  having 
healthy  workers,  to  prove  that  such  an  enterprise 
would  be  practicable  for  public  authorities  on  a 
large  scale.  Country  villages  in  which  some 
branch   of    manufacture    is    carried  on   are   to   be 


THE    HOME  273 

found  in  various  places.  There  is  one  at  Wookey 
Hole  near  Wells,  where  a  factory  for  hand-made 
paper — a  small  but  highly-paid  trade — is  situated 
on  a  pure  stream  issuing  from  the  Cheddar  cliffs. 
There  is  one  in  Suffolk,  near  Manningtree,  to  which 
many  years  ago  a  xylonite  manufactory  was  trans- 
planted from  the  East  of  London,  together  with 
the  workers  employed  therein ;  the  workers  were 
housed  in  good  cottages  with  gardens ;  their 
children  played  in  the  country  lanes  and  grew 
hearty  on  country  air  and  food ;  although  the 
men  declared  that  the  place  was  dull  for  their 
wives,  and  the  wives  that  it  was  dull  for  their 
husbands,  both  agreed  that  it  was  a  paradise  for 
their  children.  Scarcely  any  availed  themselves  of 
the  agreement  made  when  they  migrated  from 
London  that  they  should  be  sent  back  if  they 
did  not  like  the  change.  There  is  a  considerable 
movement  now  in  the  industrial  world  for  scatter- 
ing the  factories  of  which  the  concentration  was 
first  brought  about  by  the  use  of  steam.  With 
the  increasing  use  of  electric  power  such  con- 
centration becomes  no  longer  necessary ;  it  is 
more  economical  to  bring  electricity  to  distant 
works  erected  where  land  is  cheap,  than  to  crowd 
the  works  round  power-stations  where  land  is  dear. 
Electric  trams,  motor  omnibuses,  and  all  cheap 
modes  of  transit,  tend  still  further  to  spread  the 
population  into  the  fields  ;  and  the  day  may  not 
be  so  far  distant  when  the  houses  in  the  mean 
streets  of  mean  suburbs  will  be  left  empty  on  the 


274     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

hands  of  the  speculators  who  built  them,  and  the 
workers  go  further  afield  where  gardens  and  flowers 
and  fruit  and  vegetables  can  be  had  as  a  universal 
addition  to  a  sanitary  and  well-built  cottage.  Many 
trades  are  already  leaving  the  town,  of  which  the 
printing  trade  is  a  conspicuous  example,  and  many 
are  preparing  to  follow  ;  the  cost  of  any  enlarge- 
ment of  premises,  and  the  difficulty  of  getting 
dwellings  for  the  workers  in  the  vicinity  of  the 
works  are  the  impulses  which  are  driving  capitalists 
to  seek  sites  for  manufacture  elsewhere. 


The  First  Garden  City 

The  Garden  City  at  Letch  worth,  in  Hertfordshire, 
holds  out  advantages  to  both  employers  and  em- 
ployed. It  is  the  first  experiment  of  its  kind  and 
is  based  on  sound  principles,  though  it  may  not 
yet  be  sufficiently  advanced  to  be  pronounced  an 
economic  success.  The  town  is  to  be  limited  in 
size  and  population,  and  there  is  to  be  an  agri- 
cultural belt  all  round  it,  so  as  to  render  vitiation 
of  the  air  impossible.  Land  is  to  be  let  for  factories 
and  dwelling-houses  upon  such  conditions  as  will 
promote  the  health  and  welfare  of  the  inhabitants  ; 
and  all  profits  and  the  unearned  increment  which 
elsewhere  enriches  the  landowner  will,  after  allotting 
a  5  per  cent,  dividend  on  the  original  capital,  be 
available  for  the  common  interests  of  the  town. 
The  whole  area  dealt  with  is  3,800  acres,  and  of 
this  only  800  acres  will  be  covered  by  the  buildings 


THE    HOME  275 

of  the  town,  the  rest  will  form  the  agricultural 
belt,  and  be  laid  out  in  allotments,  market-gardens, 
and  small  farms.  There  will  be  no  "  slum  "  in  the  ^ 
town,  not  more  than  six  or  eight  cottages  to  the  *- 
acre  will  be  permitted,  and  overcrowding  in  these 
can  be  prevented  under  the  Public  Health  Act. 
Every  cottage  will  have  a  garden  or  an  allotment 
within  easy  reach.  The  sites  for  factories  are  laid 
out  in  a  quarter  of  the  town  adjoining  the  Great 
Northern  Railway,  which  runs  through  the  centre 
of  the  city,  and  are  provided  with  railway  sidings 
and  every  convenience  for  manufacturing  processes. 
In  this  way  every  employer  can  obtain  a  site 
suitable  for  his  manufacture,  and  can  easily  arrange 
for  houses  for  his  workers.  The  streets  of  the  town 
will  be  broad  avenues  planted  with  trees,  letting 
light  and  air  into  the  heart  of  the  city,  and  there 
will  be  parks,  playgrounds,  and  open  spaces,  so  as 
to  make  the  place  beautiful  as  well  as  healthy.  In 
this  city  the  worker  will  have  a  healthy  home,  and 
his  wife  and  children  will  live  in  conditions  nearly 
approaching  those  of  country  life.  He  will  be 
supplied  on  the  most  favourable  terms  with  water, 
light,  power,  and  heat,  and  his  house  will  be  properly 
drained.  All  the  increment  in  the  value  of  land 
will  be  applied  to  the  benefit  of  the  inhabitants. 
The  market-gardeners  and  farmers  who  cultivate 
the  agricultural  belt  will  have  a  market  close  at 
hand  for  their  fruit,  vegetables,  dairy  and  agri- 
cultural produce ;  the  industrial  workers  will  have 
each  a  bit  of  land  if  he  chooses,  upon  which  he  and 


276     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

his  family  can  expend  their  surplus  labour,  and  the 
fruits  of  that  labour  will  belong  to  themselves. 
The  town  will  be  large  enough  to  provide  audiences 
for  theatres,  concerts,  lectures,  and  other  enter- 
tainments. There  is  no  reason  why  life  should 
be  dull. 


Garden  Suburbs 

There  are  many  garden  suburbs  already  in 
existence  in  various  parts  of  the  country.  At 
Bourneville,  near  Birmingham,  one  has  been  for 
some  time  established  by  Messrs.  Cadbury  near 
their  works,  but  not  restricted  to  persons  in  their 
employment.  About  half  the  houses  in  Bourneville 
are  inhabited  by  Messrs.  Cadbury 's  workpeople, 
and  about  half  by  persons  employed  in  other 
industries,  in  or  near  Birmingham.  The  houses 
are  built  and  the  roads  laid  out  on  the  plan  which 
is  being  followed  by  the  First  Garden  City  ;  indeed, 
Bourneville  has  afforded  an  excellent  example  for 
enterprises  of  this  kind.  Every  house  has  its 
garden,  by  no  means  restricted  to  the  growth  of 
saleable  produce.  There  are  luxuriant  flowers  in 
front  of  each  dwelling,  as  well  as  useful  fruits  and 
vegetables  behind,  and  it  is  estimated  that  a 
net  profit  of  two  shillings  per  week  all  round  is 
derived  from  the  cultivation  of  the  soil  in  these 
gardens,  by  men  who  are  working  during  the  day 
in  factories  and  workshops.  An  object-lesson  to 
public    authorities   in    London    is   now   being   set 


THE    HOME  277 

by  Mrs.  Barnett,  of  Toynbee  Hall.  An  addition 
of  80  acres  to  Hampstead  Heath  was,  a  year 
or  two  ago,  purchased  through  her  exertions  from 
the  trustees  of  Eton  College.  A  company  pro- 
moted by  her  has  now  purchased  245  acres, 
contiguous  to  this  new  piece  of  Hampstead 
Heath  and  extended  thence  to  the  Finchley 
Road.  This  land  is  now  being  laid  out  as  a  garden 
suburb,  within  easy  access  of  the  heart  of  London 
by  tubular  railway.  The  company  is  restricted 
to  a  dividend  of  5  per  cent,  upon  its  capital.  All 
profit  beyond  that  will  be  devoted  to  the  benefit 
of  the  inhabitants.  There  will  be  houses  for  rich 
and  poor  and  persons  of  middle  estate.  The  roads 
and  smaller  dwellings  will  be  designed  on  the  same 
system  of  health  and  beauty  as  those  of  Bourne- 
ville  and  the  First  Garden  City  except  that  there 
are  to  be  no  manufactories  on  the  site.  The 
workers  will  go  to  their  work  elsewhere.  There 
are  many  enterprises  of  the  same  kind  being 
promoted  in  other  places  by  private  persons  and 
public  authorities.  Sheffield  has  made  the  last 
addition  to  its  municipal  dwellings  in  the  form  of 
a  garden  suburb  in  the  outskirts  of  the  borough, 
in  country  surroundings,  but  within  reach  of  some 
of  the  great  Sheffield  works.  A  preference  by 
the  workers  for  housing  accommodation  of  this 
kind  may  lead  to  the  disestablishment  of  the  jerry- 
builder,  and  to  the  early  destruction  of  modern 
streets  of  squalid  houses. 


278     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

Housing  in  Country   Villages 

The  insanitary  condition  of  country  cottages  is 
a  great  drawback  to  the  healthiness  of  country  life, 
and  will,  unless  remedied,  put  a  stop  to  the  breeding 
of  the  stout  and  vigorous  country  race,  which  has 
so  far  reinvigorated  the  deteriorating  race  of  the 
towns.  The  reformer  of  rural  housing  finds  himself 
entangled  in  insuperable  difficulties.  Wages  are 
so  low  that  a  countryman  cannot  afford  a  rent 
which  will  pay  the  cost  of  providing  a  decent 
cottage ;  and  the  possibility  of  renting  a  cottage 
unfit  for  habitation  keeps  wages  at  a  low  level. 
No  builder  who  is  looking  for  a  return  on  his 
capital  outlay  will  put  up  houses  in  the  country  : 
landowners,  impoverished  by  agricultural  depression, 
have  not  the  means  to  do  it ;  the  Rural  District 
councils,  who  are  mostly  farmers,  will  not  do  it, 
because  it  will  increase  rates,  which  they  have  been 
taught  to  believe  are  a  charge  upon  themselves. 
Many  country  cottages  which  are  unfit  for  human 
habitation  are  not  worth  repair ;  if  a  movement  for 
reform  were  made  in  the  district,  they  would  have 
to  be  closed,  and  there  are  no  other  cottages  to 
take  their  places.  The  inmates  would  be  driven 
out  of  the  country  into  the  towns.  I  once  visited 
an  Irish  labourer  in  County  Cork  who  was  living, 
with  a  large  family  and  much  live  stock,  in  one  of 
the  worst  houses  I  ever  saw.  It  had  several  times 
been  properly  condemned  by  the  local  authority 
as  unfit  for  human  habitation.     The  man  and  his 


THE    HOME  279 

family  seemed  contented  with  their  lot ;  their  chief 
fear  was  that  their  house  might  be  pulled  down. 
There  was  no  other  place  to  which  they  could  go, 
and  they  would  be  compelled  to  migrate  to  the 
town  of  Skibbareen,  many  miles  away,  where  they 
had  no  prospect  of  work.  The  Rural  Sanitary 
authorities  will  not  build  houses  in  places  where 
they  are  scarce  on  what  they  regard  as  sound 
economic  principles  ;  the  only  policy  to  which  they 
cling  is  opposition  to  anything  that  can  increase 
the  rates.  The  Committee  on  Physical  Deteriora- 
tion reported  that  since  1900,  when  the  powers  of 
the  Rural  Sanitary  authorities  in  England  under 
the  Housing  Act  of  1890  had  been  extended,  only 
two  District  Councils  had  actually  built  cottages. 
The  drift  of  population  from  country  to  town  is 
a  feature  of  modern  society  which  everybody 
laments,  as  tending  to  the  deterioration  of  the  race. 
The  condition  of  rural  houses  stimulates,  and  in 
many  cases  actually  compels,  this  migration. 

The  insanitary  condition  of  so  many  country 
cottages  is  a  great  obstacle  to  the  spread  in 
England  of  the  system  of  boarding  out  Poor 
Law  children.  The  Local  Government  Board 
will  not  allow  children  for  whom  the  State  is 
responsible  to  live  in  such  places.  This  is  just 
as  far  as  it  goes ;  but  the  Government  should  carry 
its  reforming  energies  further,  and  procure  such  a 
change  in  rural  cottages  as  shall  fit  them  to  be 
homes  for  State  children. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

FINANCE 

Cost  of  Reform 

ALL  the  measures  of  reform  suggested  or 
referred  to  in  the  preceding  pages  will  cost 
money.  The  expenditure  will  be  in  almost  every 
case  a  saving  in  the  end,  but  there  will  be  an  initial 
outlay.  Where  is  the  money  to  come  from  ?  There 
are  in  our  country  two  separate  sources  of  public 
revenue — the  Imperial  Exchequer  and  Local  Taxa- 
tion. In  public  expenditure  for  social  purposes 
there  is  always  some  difference  of  opinion  as  to 
the  source  from  which  it  should  come.  The 
principle  generally  professed  is  that  measures  which 
specially  benefit  the  people  of  a  particular  locality 
should  be  financed  from  local  funds,  and  that  the 
Imperial  revenue  should  bear  charges  which  are 
incurred  for  the  advantage  of  the  whole  population. 
But  this  principle  is  constantly  departed  from  in 
practice.  There  is  a  strange  delusion  abroad  that 
money  raised  by  local  taxation  comes  out  of  the 

pockets  of  the  people,  while  that  derived  from  the 

280 


FINANCE  281 

Imperial  Exchequer  comes  down  like  manna  from 
heaven,  as  if  every  penny  of  the  Imperial  revenue, 
except  that  derived  from  the  Post  Office,  Crown 
Lands,  &c,  was  not  contributed  by  the  people 
themselves! 

Direct  and  Indirect  Taxation 

The  Imperial  taxation  is  not  only  paid  by  the 
people,  but  it  is  alleged  that  an  undue  share  is  paid 
by  the  poorest  classes  of  the  people.  What  goes 
by  the  name  of  direct  taxation — the  Property  and 
Income  Tax,  Estate  Duty,  and  Stamps — does  not 
in  the  main  come  from  the  working  classes.  These 
taxes  affect  them  indirectly  by  curtailing  enterprise 
and  limiting  the  capital  applied  to  industries.  But 
the  indirect  taxation — Customs  and  Excise — is  paid 
by  all  classes  alike.  Every  man,  however  poor, 
who  purchases  an  article  on  which  a  duty  is  laid — 
beer,  spirits,  tobacco,  tea,  or  sugar — pays  an  en- 
hanced price  because  of  the  tax,  and  this  increased 
price  finds  its  way  into  the  Exchequer.  Calculations 
have  often  been  made  and  expounded  in  Parliament 
to  show  that  the  result  of  this  double  system  of 
direct  and  indirect  taxation  is  that  the  sum  which 
a  poor  man  pays  in  the  shape  of  the  increased  price 
of  the  dutiable  articles  which  he  buys  bears  a 
greater  proportion  to  his  means  than  the  direct 
and  indirect  taxes  which  a  rich  man  pays.  If  the 
just  system  of  taxation  is  that  all  should  pay  accord- 
ing to  their  means,  the  poor  man  is  unjustly  burdened 
so  long  as  he  pays  in  taxation  a  greater  proportion 


282     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

of  his  income  than  the  rich.  It  is  to  put  an  end  to 
this  injustice  that  there  is  a  constant  agitation  to 
reduce  the  amount  of  revenue  raised  by  indirect 
taxation,  and  it  is  to  perpetuate  it  that  the  present 
system  of  indirect  taxation  is  kept  up. 


Local  Rates 

Local  authorities  have  one  source  only  from 
which  they  can  themselves  raise  funds,  namely, 
rates ;  although,  as  we  shall  see,  other  sources 
of  revenue  have  in  recent  years  been  provided 
for  them.  A  rate  is  paid,  in  the  first  instance, 
by  the  occupier  of  the  land,  house,  factory,  or 
shop,  and  is  proportional  to  the  annual  letting 
value  of  the  premises  in  respect  of  which  it  is 
paid.  The  question  out  of  whose  pocket  the 
rate  ultimately  comes  is  one  of  some  intricacy, 
and  the  real  incidence  of  the  tax  is  obscured 
by  the  fact  that  it  is  from  the  occupier  of  the 
premises  taxed  that  the  rate  is  demanded,  that  he 
is  under  a  legal  obligation  to  pay  it,  and  that  in 
the  first  instance  he  actually  does  pay  it  out  of  his 
own  moneys.  But  the  principles  of  Political 
Economy  teach  that,  notwithstanding,  it  is  not 
really  a  tax  upon  the  occupier  at  all,  but  upon  the 
owner  of  the  premises  ;  it  is  that  part  of  the  annual 
value  of  the  property  which  the  State  does  not 
permit  the  owner  to  receive  for  his  own  purposes, 
but  intercepts  through  the  agency  of  the  occupier 
and  appropriates  to  public  purposes.     The  working 


FINANCE  283 

people  who  live  in  small  houses  do  not  themselves 
in  most  places  pay  any  rates  at  all ;  an  agreement 
is  made  by  the  owner  with  the  rating  authority 
whereby  he  compounds,  as  it  is  called,  for  the  rates 
upon  his  small  houses,  and  pays  a  fixed  and  stipulated 
sum  in  respect  of  them  ;  this  causes  him  to  receive 
less  for  the  letting  of  his  property  than  he  would  be 
able  to  realise  if  there  was  no  payment  to  be  made 
in  respect  of  the  rates.  The  price  which  a  tenant 
pays  for  the  occupation  of  a  house  is  determined, 
like  all  other  prices,  by  the  law  of  supply  and 
demand.  If  there  are  many  houses  in  any  neigh- 
bourhood and  few  people  seeking  to  occupy  them 
rent  has  a  tendency  to  fall ;  if  there  is  a  scarcity  of 
houses  and  a  brisk  demand  for  them  it  has  a 
tendency  to  rise ;  and  the  rent  in  the  long  run  so 
adjusts  itself  that  at  the  price  at  which  it  ultimately 
fixes  itself  houses  in  the  neighbourhood  can  find 
tenants  who  are  willing  to  pay  that  sum  for  the 
occupation  of  the  normal  house.  No  ordinary 
tenant  is  willing  to  pay  more  than  the  amount  at 
which  the  higgling  of  the  market  fixes  the  rent, 
and  no  tenant  can  get  a  house  unless  he  is  ready 
to  pay  the  amount  of  rent  which  the  law  of  supply 
and  demand  thus  fixes.  In  the  case  of  all  these 
smaller  houses  so  compounded  for  the  only  sum 
paid  by  the  tenant  out  of  his  own  pocket  is  the 
sum  demanded  under  the  name  of  rent ;  he  knows 
nothing  about  rates ;  he  is  not  asked  for  them  ;  he 
does  not  pay  them  ;  his  rent  is  as  much  as  he  can 
be  made  to  pay ;  there  is  no  more  to  be  got  out  of 


284     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

him.  His  landlord  has  made  his  own  arrangement 
with  the  rating  authority ;  he  has  compounded  for 
the  rates  and  has  paid  to  the  rating  authority  a 
lump  sum,  considerably  less  than  that  which  the 
rates  on  the  houses  separately  would  come  to. 
This  system  of  compounding  for  the  rates  on  small 
houses  is  a  great  advantage  to  the  public  ;  it  saves 
the  cost  of  collecting  the  rate.  When,  for  political 
reasons,  it  was  abolished  in  Mr.  Disraeli's  Repre- 
sentation of  the  People  Act,  1867,  it  soon  grew  up 
again  on  the  ground  of  its  economic  convenience. 
In  such  cases  the  tenants  pay  no  rates  at  all,  they 
pay  nothing  but  a  rent ;  it  does  not  matter  to  them 
whether  the  rate  is  much  or  little  ;  it  does  not  alter 
the  sum  they  pay  for  the  occupation  of  their  houses, 
and  it  does  not  matter  to  them  how  much  goes  into 
the  pockets  of  their  landlords  and  how  much  the 
latter  have  to  pay  over  to  the  local  authority.  In 
the  case  of  larger  houses  the  tenant  does  himself 
pay  the  rate  in  the  first  instance,  but  he  takes  the 
amount  of  the  rate  which  he  has  to  pay  to  the  local 
authority,  as  well  as  the  amount  of  rent  he  has  to 
pay  to  his  landlord,  into  consideration  in  determining 
the  amount  which  he  is  ready  to  give  for  the  occupa- 
tion of  the  house.  If  the  law  of  supply  and  demand 
fixes  the  price  of  the  sort  of  house  he  wishes  to  take 
at  ^125  per  annum,  and  if  the  rates  in  the  district 
are  5s.  in  the  £,  he  will  be  ready  to  give  ^100  rent 
and  to  pay  £2$  to  the  rate-collector.  If  there  were 
no  rates  the  landlord  could  command  a  rent  of  ^125 
for  the  house,  but  with  £25  to  be  paid  in  rates  he 


FINANCE  285 

cannot   get  more  than  ^ioo,  because  the  law  of 
supply  and  demand  fixes  the  price  of  such  a  house 
at  ^125  per  annum.     It  is  evident  that  the  rates  in 
such  a  case  come  as  really  out  of  the  landlord's 
pocket  as  in  the  case  in  which  the  rates  are  com- 
pounded for.     What  a  substantial  increase  of  the 
rates  or  the  imposition  of  some  new  local  burden 
really  does  is  to  disturb  the  existing  relation  between 
landlord  and  tenant,  and  to  furnish  the  occasion  for 
a  revision  of  the  bargain  and  for  raising  the  rent  if 
the  law  of  supply  and  demand  admits  of  it — that  is, 
if  the  supply  of  house  accommodation  is  falling  short 
of  the  demand.     In  recent  times  rents  in  towns  have 
risen  greatly,  and  even  at  present  show  a  tendency 
in  many  places  to  rise  still  further.     The  landlord 
has  therefore  been  in  a  position  to  alter,  whenever 
a  revision  of  the  bargain  took  place,  the  amount  of 
rent,  and  thus  the  continuous  rise  in  the  rates  which 
has  been  going  on  for  some  years  has  apparently 
fallen  on  the  tenant.     This  has  brought  about  the 
false  notion  that  it  was  the  tenant  who  paid  the  rates, 
and  that  it  was  on  him  and  not  on  the  landlord  that 
the  burden  of  rates  ultimately  fell.     In  the  case  of 
agricultural  land  the  same  law  holds  good.     It  was 
the  landowner  and  not  the  farmer  who  really  paid 
the  rates — at  least  he  had  to  do  so  until  he  was 
partially  relieved  of  his  obligation  by  the  Agricul- 
tural Rating  Act  and  the  consequent  contribution 
out   of   Imperial    Funds.     Some   years  ago,  when 
rents  were  rapidly  falling  and  agricultural  land  was 
difficult  to  let,  the  farmer  could,  and  did,  stipulate 


286     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

with  his  landlord  to  pay  any  fresh  burdens  under 
threat  of  throwing  up  his  farm.  But  at  any  time 
when  rents  were  rising  it  would  be  the  landlord  and 
not  the  farmer  who  would  occupy  the  position  of 
advantage,  because  the  former  would  be  in  a  position 
to  increase  the  rent,  and  the  payment  of  any 
increased  rate  by  the  tenant  would  be  equivalent 
to  a  raising  of  the  rent.  In  a  case  where  house  or 
land  is  let  on  lease,  with  a  covenant  by  the  tenant 
to  pay  the  rates  during  the  term,  the  increased  rate 
imposed  is  really  paid  by  the  tenant  during  the 
currency  of  the  lease  ;  it  is  no  burden  on  the  owner. 
But  when  the  lease  comes  to  an  end  the  tenant 
takes  the  increased  rate  into  consideration  in  deter- 
mining what  price  he  is  willing  to  pay  for  a  further 
occupancy  of  the  house  or  land,  and  the  landlord  in 
determining  what  rent  he  shall  ask.  Whatever  rate 
is  imposed  by  a  local  authority  on  either  house  or 
land  is  thus  in  the  long  run  paid  by  the  owner  ;  if 
the  occupier  had  not  to  pay  it  the  owner  could 
exact  the  sum  from  him  in  the  form  of  an  increased 
rent. 

Popular  Delusion  about  Rates 

If,  therefore,  rates  are  paid  by  the  owners  of 
property,  and  if  the  workers  who  are  tenants  and 
not  owners  of  their  houses  would  have  to  pay  just 
the  same  amount  for  the  occupation  of  them  if  there 
were  no  rates  at  all,  the  widely  prevalent  idea  that 
high  rates  are  a  burden  not  so  much  upon  the  rich 
as  upon  the  poor  is  a  most  extraordinary  delusion. 


FINANCE  287 

It  is  greatly  for  the  interest  of  the  owners  of  pro- 
perty that  such  a  fiction  should  be  believed  in. 
They  have  no  interest  in  convincing  their  tenants 
of  their  error  or  in  opposing  themselves  to  the 
demand  which  is  so  often  made  by  the  democracy 
for  the  transfer  of  charges  from  local  taxation, 
which  the  mass  of  the  people  do  not  pay,  to  the 
consolidated  fund,  to  which  they  do  contribute.  Yet 
there  are  circumstances  which  might  have  led  the 
people  to  suspect  that  their  theories  about  local  and 
Imperial  taxation  were  not  wholly  correct.  A  much 
greater  zeal  has  always  been  evinced  by  the  govern- 
ing classes  for  the  reduction  of  rates  than  for  the 
reduction  of  taxes,  other,  at  least,  than  the  income- 
tax.  If  they  really  believed  that  the  rates  were 
paid,  like  the  tea  and  sugar  duties,  mainly  by  the 
workers  and  in  an  undue  proportion  by  the  poorest, 
would  they  be  so  eager  to  bring  about  their  reduc- 
tion ?  Would  the  House  of  Lords,  which  specially 
represents  landed  property,  be  so  eager  for  the 
reduction  of  rates  and  for  local  economy  ?  It  is 
from  the  representatives  of  property  in  Parliament 
and  in  local  assemblies  that  charges  of  extravagance 
against  municipalities  mainly  proceed.  They  always 
oppose  any  expenditure  out  of  rates  for  social  pur- 
poses, and  always  urge  that  any  experiment  in  social 
reform,  such  as  the  feeding  of  school  children  or  the 
formation  of  labour  colonies,  should  be  made  by 
private,  irresponsible  persons  out  of  charitable  funds, 
rather  than  by  public  authority  out  of  the  rates. 
The  Local  Government  Board  is  specially  designed 


288     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

to  act  as  a  protector  of  the  owners  of  property  and 
to  check  in  their  supposed  interest  any  novel  pro- 
posal for  local  expenditure  out  of  the  rates,  even 
when  desired  by  the  inhabitants.  Almost  all  reforms 
in  the  administration  of  the  Poor  Law  have  been 
carried  by  enlightened  Boards  of  Guardians  in  the 
teeth  of  the  opposition  of  the  Local  Government 
Board.  When  the  Poor  Law  Guardians  of  Sheffield 
invented  the  system  of  scattered  homes  for  the 
reception  of  the  children  of  paupers  not  eligible  for 
boarding  out  they  had  the  greatest  difficulty  in 
getting  the  sanction  of  the  Local  Government 
Board  to  the  small  expenditure  involved  in  the 
experiment.  They  were  not  permitted  to  build, 
but  only  to  rent,  the  houses  required,  and  they 
were  hedged  in  by  all  sorts  of  restrictions  in  the 
interest  of  so-called  economy.  The  system  turned 
out  a  complete  success,  and  is  now  imitated  all  over 
the  land,  and  even  recommended  by  the  Local 
Government  Board  itself ;  but  the  improved  method 
of  dealing  with  these  children  is  due  to  the  persist- 
ence of  the  Sheffield  Guardians,  not  to  the  initiative 
or  even  sympathy  of  the  central  authority.  In  all 
modern  Acts  of  Parliament  the  control  of  the  central 
authority  is  carefully  preserved  ;  free  local  self- 
government  and  independent  local  administration 
are  no  longer  tolerated ;  and  you  have  to  go  back 
to  an  old  Act  like  the  Public  Health  Act  of  1875 
to  find  general  discretionary  powers,  such  as  the 
power  to  provide  hospitals  for  the  sick,  left  to  the 
local  authorities. 


FINANCE  289 

Local  Revenue 

The  system  of  local  taxation  certainly  demands 
reform.  Its  incidence  upon  one  kind  of  property 
only  is  as  unjust  to  the  rich  as  the  incidence  of  indirect 
taxation  in  an  undue  proportion  is  to  the  poor.  It  is 
indeed  urged  by  some  that,  in  the  case  of  towns  at 
least,  the  ground  landlord  can  justly  be  called  upon 
to  defray  all  the  costs  of  local  expenditure  and 
development.  The  value  of  his  land  is  continually 
increased  by  the  labour  of  others  without  exertion 
on  his  part,  and  the  rates  are  only  that  part  of  the 
unearned  increment  which  the  State  appropriates; 
it  would  be  no  injustice  if  the  whole  unearned  incre- 
ment were  appropriated.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
levy  of  rates  and  the  expenditure  of  their  proceeds 
is  entirely  in  the  power  of  the  local  electors  so  far 
as  discretion  is  left  to  them.  So  long  as  they  do 
not  in  fact  raise  the  local  revenue  out  of  their  own 
pockets  the  situation  is  obviously  dangerous  and 
unfair.  One  class  of  citizens  provide  the  local  funds 
and  another  class  dispose  of  them.  That  taxation 
and  representation  should  go  together  is  a  sound 
political  maxim  ;  that  one  class  should  be  taxed  and 
another  class  practically  command  the  representation 
is  a  mischievous  anomaly.  Several  remedies  have 
been  proposed,  most  of  which  are  admitted  to  be 
stop-gap  expedients  only.  Of  late  years  large  and 
increasing  grants  have  been  made  out  of  the 
Imperial  Exchequer  for  local  purposes.  The  effect 
of  this   is  to   shift   part  of  the   burden   from   the 


290     THE    CHILDREN    OF    THE    NATION 

shoulders  of  the  rich  to  those  of  the  poor,  and  so 
make  the  latter  really  bear  some  share  of  local 
expenditure  as  contributors  to  the  Imperial  grants 
by  which  it  is  subsidised.  Another  expedient  is 
to  transfer  to  local  authorities  the  produce  of  some 
of  the  Imperial  taxes,  public-house  licenses,  dog 
licenses,  carriage  licenses,  &c,  as  an  addition  to  the 
local  revenue  from  rates.  The  reform  of  local  taxa- 
tion, on  which  Royal  Commissions  have  sat  and 
which  has  been  promised  year  after  year,  seems 
still  as  far  off  as  ever. 


German  System 

In  Germany  every  citizen  contributes  to  the  local 
revenue  upon  the  same  basis  as  to  the  revenue  of 
the  entire  State  to  which  he  belongs.  Everybody 
is  assessed  at  an  annual  sum  according  to  his  calling 
and  position,  and  upon  that  he  pays  so  much  in  the 
pound  to  local  and  State  revenues.  The  Municipal 
Council,  which  holds  the  purse-strings  and  controls 
all  local  expenditure,  is  elected  upon  a  peculiar 
principle.  The  payers  of  local  taxes  are  divided 
into  three  sections  :  one  consists  of  those  who  pay 
the  highest  amounts  and  whose  contributions  form 
a  third  of  the  total  revenue  ;  one,  of  those  who  pay 
the  lowest  amounts  and  whose  contributions  form 
another  third  of  the  revenue  *  i**J  the  remainder  of 
those  whose  contributions  are  between  the  two  and 
who  furnish  the  remaining  third.  Each  of  these 
sections  elects  separately  one-third  of  the  Municipal 


FINANCE  291 

Council.     It  is  evident  that  under  such  a  system 
the  richer  classes,  who  pay  most,  have  a  far  greater 
influence  on  local  administration  than  the  property 
owners  with  us,  and  that  the  poorer  classes  do  not 
possess  the  potential  power  which  they  might  at 
any  time  seize  upon  under  our  democratic  system 
if  they  took  it  into  their  heads  to  go  to  the  poll 
at  election  times.     The  remarkable  thing   is  that 
German  municipalities,  in  which  the  rich  have  so 
preponderating  a  voice,  are  more  liberal  with  public 
funds  and  show  more  readiness  to  promote  local 
enterprise  and  municipal  trading,  which  is  such  a 
bugbear  to  us,  than  our  more  democratic  bodies. 
They    seem    to    have    learnt    the    lesson    that    by 
judicious  public  expenditure  they  enrich  themselves. 
They  not  only  maintain  all  the  schools  and  hospitals 
with  much  less  help  than  our  local  authorities  from 
the  Central  Government,  but  they  provide  water, 
gas,  electric  light  and  power,  trams,  parks,  abattoirs, 
and  even  theatres  and  orchestras,  for  the  people, 
and  none  of  the  citizens,  rich  or  poor,  seem  to  think 
the  money  ill  spent  or  the  interest  of  the  poorest 
citizen  neglected. 


Social  Reform 

How  much  of  the  expenditure  required  to  amelio- 
rate the  health  of  the  British  people  is  of  a  national 
and  how  much  of  a  local  character  it  is  difficult  to 
determine.  The  publicity  of  Parliament  and  the 
control    which    the    Treasury   still    exercises    over 


292     THE    CHILDREN    OF   THE    NATION 

public  expenditure  are  a  sufficient  safeguard  against 
the  lavishing  of  the  consolidated  fund  upon  any 
schemes  for  improving  the  health  of  the  people 
which  are  not  national  in  their  scope.  Local 
revenues  are  at  present  protected  by  the  delusion 
of  the  mass  of  the  people  that  rates  come  out  of 
their  own  pockets,  while  grants  from  the  taxes  are 
not  paid  by  themselves  ;  but  it  is  at  any  time  in  the 
power  of  the  local  electorate,  which  itself  pays  only 
a  very  small  portion  of  the  local  revenue,  to  elect 
an  administrative  council  which,  in  spite  of  the 
Local  Government  Board,  would  be  legally  com- 
petent liberally  to  apply  local  revenues  to  improve 
the  condition  of  the  people.  It  is  probable  that 
such  expenditure,  if  judicious,  would  greatly  increase 
the  value  of  property  and  prove  to  the  richer  classes, 
who  are  now  so  opposed  to  outlay  for  such  purposes, 
a  blessing  in  disguise. 


INDEX 


Adenoids,  hi 

„  a  cause  of  deafness,  120 

„  removal,  1 1 1 

Air,  33 
„  in  Elementary  Schools,  189, 190 
„  in     Manchester    and    Salford 
Schools,  191 
Airy,  Dr.,  cost  of  feeding  children, 

73 
„      „     indifference  of  parents, 
72 
Alcohol,  French  proclamation,  250 
„         Hereditary  effects,  252 
„        Syphilis  and  alcohol,  256 
Ancoats,  Manchester,  back  to  back 

houses,  64 
Anderson,  Miss,  neglect  of  children, 
42 
„  „      prejudice    against 

creches,  41 

Baby  rooms,  183,  184 

Barnardo,  Dr.,  on  barrack  schools, 

234 
„  „    on    boarding    out, 

241 
„  „    Homes,  244 

Barrack  schools,  232 
Bathurst,  Miss,  on  temperature  of 
schools,  195 


Berlin  Conference,  219 

„  „  its  recommen- 

dations, 220, 
223 

Blackness  Board  School,  Dundee, 

55 
Birmingham  brassworkers,  150 
„  St.      Mary's      infant 

death-rate,  19 
Birth-rate  decreasing,  15 
Board  of  Education  :   its  limited 

scope,  50 
Boarding  out  children,  240 
Boys,  reclamation  of,  214 
British  Dental  Association's  report 

on  children's  teeth,  121 
Broadbent's  experiment  at   Hud- 

dersfield,  23 
Broadbent,  Sir  William,  phthisis, 

39 

Charity,  10 

Charlottenburg  Forest  School,  153 
buildings,  157 
cost,  170 
„  establishment,  155 

„  results,  167,  168 

„  school  life,  161 

„  teachefs,  163 

Child- workers,  216 


293 


294 


INDEX 


Circulars  of  the  Local  Government 
Board  and  Board  of  Education 
of  1905,  87 

Circulars  of  the  Local  Government 
Board  and  Board  of  Education 
of  1905  :  their  operation,  88 

Clay  modelling  in  infant  schools, 
178 

Clay,  Rev.  John,  infant  insurance^ 
„        „         „      reduction  of  in- 
fant death-rate 
in  a  strike,  42 

Collie,  Dr.,  children  feeble-minded 
from  lack  of  food,  77 

Cologne,  care  of  infant  life,  22 

Cooper,  Sir  Alfred,  on  syphilis,  256 

Corporal  punishment,  180 

Cost  of  free  meals  to  school  chil- 
dren, 75 

Compulsion  of  infants,  175 

Country  cottages,  278 

Creches  in  France,  40 
„       objection  to,  45 
„       instruction  of  girls  in,  44 

Cruelty  to  children  by  public 
authority,  52 

Death-rate  of  infants  in  various 

countries,  18 
Delusion  about  rates,  286 
Derelict  children,  227 
Desks  in  schools,  197 
Diarrhoea    a     cause     of     infants' 

deaths,  28 
Dirt :  mixture  of  clean  and  dirty 
children,  185 

„     cleanliness  of  German  chil- 
dren, 150 

„     baths  in    German   schools, 

151,  158 
Drawing  in  infant  schools,  178 


Drill,  Jiu  jitsu,  207 

„    military,  203 

„     Swedish,  205 
Dundee   Social  Union   report  on 

school  children,  55 

Edinburgh  school  children,  55 
Eichholz,   Dr.,  on    underfeeding, 
68,  78 
„  „     on  ventilation,  193 

Evasion  of  State  obligations,  228 
Eyesight,  116 

Factory  labour  of  children,  216 

Feeding  by  hand,  24 

Food,  unsuitable,  35 

Foresters,  Ancient  Order  of,  133 

France  cantines  scolaires  in  Paris, 
81 
„      care  of  nursing  mothers,  23 
„      proclamation  against  alco- 
hol, 250 

Friendly  Societies,  132 

Games,  211,212 
Garden  City,  274 
Garden  suburbs,  276 
Germany,    contribution    to    local 
expenditure,  290 
„  medical  inspection   of 

children,  54 
„  State  insurance,  145 

Glands,  disease  of,  1 10 
Glasgow's  provision  for    working 
widow's  children,  43 

Hall,  Dr. :  cost  of  feeding  school- 
children, 74 
Health  visitors,  Manchester,  63 
Health  officers  should  have  security 
of  tenure,  270 


INDEX 


295 


Hearing,  120 
Heart  disease,  113 
Hereditary  disease,  108,  247 
Hoare,    Mrs.,    appeal    for    over- 
worked children,  92 
Home,  its  antiquity,  262 
Hooligans,  213 

„  reformed  by  learning 

to  box,  214 
„  schools    for,     recom- 

mended by  Scottish 
Royal  Commission,  214 
Horsfall,   on   curvature  produced 
in  schools,  197 
„         on  warming  schools,  196 
Horsley,   Sir  Victor,   on   syphilis, 

254>  2S6 
Hospitals,  charitable,  129 
„  municipal,  135 

„  Poor  Law,  127 

Hours  of  labour  of  school   chil- 
dren, 94,  95,  96,  97 
Housing,  264 


Illegitimate  children,  care  of,  in 
Leipsig,  24 

Industrial    schools,     babes    com- 
mitted to,  229 

Infant  mortality,  18 

Infant  schools  suppressed  by  the 
Board  of  Education,  175,  176 

Infants  healthy  at  birth,  17 

Infectious  disease,  37,  123 

Injury  to  mind  and  body  in  infant 
schools,  176 

Insurance  of  young  children,  47 

Irish  children  better  cared  for,  70 

Irish  medical  relief,  37 

„  „         midwives,  17 

Irish  schools,  how  warmed,  193 


Jewish  children,  69 
Jiu  Jitsu,  207 

Johanna  Street  School,  Lambeth 
55,86 

Kerr,  Dr.  on  eyesight,  118 
„  on  syphilis,  254 

„  on  ventilation,  192 

Lancashire  infant  mortality,  19 
Law  as  to  cessation  of  labour  at 

childbirth  a  dead  letter,  21 
Licensing  Reform,  249 
Lighting  schools,  197 
Liverpool,  street  selling  in,  103, 104 
Local  authorities  neglect  to  pro- 
tect children,  104 
„      power  to  improve  dwellings 

264 
„      power    to   provide    hospi- 
tals, 135 
Local  Government  Board's  power 

to  protect  milk,  29 
London    School    Board's  visiting 
committees,  65 

Manchester   Ladies'   Health  So- 
ciety, 63 

Medical  inspection  of  school  chil- 
dren, 50 

Medical  officers  of  health,  270 

Metropolitan  Asylums  Board,  137 

Midwives,  17 

Mines  conclusions  of  Berlin  Con- 
ference, 223 
„      hours  of  labour  in,  225 

Military  drill,  203 

Milk,  29 
„     contamination  of,  30 
„     municipal  supply  of,  31 


296 


INDEX 


Mothers  taken  off  to  work,  20 
Mother's  influence  in  education,  76 

National    interest    in   health   of 

children,  6 
Needle-threading  in  infant  schools, 

119 
Neglect  of  maternal  duty,  21 
Newman,  Dr.,  on  infant  mortality, 

18 
Norway  infant  mortality,  18 
Notification  of  diseases,  136 
Nurseries,  40,  187 

Occupier  of  rated  premises,  284 
Old  age  in  Germany,  148 
Ophthalmia  in  Poor  Law  schools, 

233 
Outdoor  relief  to  widows,  229 
Overcrowding,  263 

Painting  in  infant  schools,  178 
Parliament  and  overworked  chil- 
dren, 98 
Phthisis,  38 
Physical  training,  dress,  209 

„  „  evening  classes, 

212 
„  „  medical  inspec- 

tion necessary, 
209     - 
„  „  Scottish     Royal 

Commission 
on,  211 
Playgrounds,  199 
Poor  Law  Guardians  and  medical 
relief,  36 
„        „     conflict   with    Sanitary 
authority,  5,  39 
Premature  schooling,  173 


Prevention     of     contagious     dis- 
eases, 3,  257 
Preston,  infant  mortality,  42 
„       child  insurance,  49 
Public  economy,  4 
„     safety,  3 
„      Health  Acts,  129 
Purpose  of  the  book,  1 

Race,   propagated    by   the    most 

unfit,  16 
Raising  the  age  of  factory  children, 

221 
Rates,   the   only   source  of  local 

revenue,  282 
Rent,  283 

Return  of  overworked  children,  93 
Rickets,  114 

School  meals,  80 

Sheffield  scattered  homes,  238 

Simon  Jules,  on  duty  of  State  to 

children  at  Berlin  Conference, 

219 
Sleep  in  infant  schools,  184 
Slums,   pulling  down   in  centres, 
263 
„      re-established  in  suburbs, 
270 
Slum    property,    registration     of 

owner,  269 
South  African  war,  men  invalided 

home  for  bad  teeth,  122 
Spain,  unhealthy  mines  in,  225 
Spine     curvature  ,  produced     in 

school,  197 
State  insurance,  143 
Still  births,  need  for  registration, 

17 
Street  trading,  children  employed 

in,  96 


INDEX 


297 


Street  trading,  Liverpool   regula- 
tions, 103,  104 
Survival  of  the  fittest,  27 
Swedish  drill,  205 
Switzerland,  two  months'  cessation 

of  labour  at  childbirth,  20 
Syphilis,  252 

„        detention,  260 
„        hospitals  for,  259 
„        prevention  in  Russia,  258 
„        ravages  amongstchildren, 
253 

Taxation,  direct  and  indirect,  281 
Teaching  hygiene  to  the  people,  25 
Teeth,  121 

Theatrical  children,  100 
Tuberculosis,  112 

Underfed  children,  67,  68 
United  States,  condition  of  child 
workers,  219 


Urgency  of  the  children's  need  of 
food,  79 


Vaccination,  4 

Vagrants'  children,  34 

Ventilation,  189 

Village  communities  for  Poor  Law 

children,  236 
Visitors  for  the  Education  Com. 

mittees,  59,  62 


Wages  earned  by  school  children, 

95,  96,  97 
Water  supply  for  schools,  196 
Weight  increase  at  Charlottenburg 

Forest  School,  168 
Women      inspectors     in      infant 

schools,  187 
Workhouses,  children  in,  230 
Workhouse  infirmaries,  127 


Ube  Gcesbam  f>rcss, 

UNWIN  BROTHERS,  LIMITED, 
WOKING  AND  LONDON. 


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